


Whose Light Doth Lighten All That Here We See

by akathecentimetre



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Dark, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Obi-Wan-centric, Oneshot Series, Prometheus on Tatooine, Wingfic, domestic AU, third-person observation is my bread and butter, you want ships we got ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 46,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Obi-Wan centric oneshot series, multi-pairing and multi-genre. Hope you enjoy!</p><p>16. A weekend getaway - i.e. CodyWan uber-fluff.<br/>17. Domestic!verse - Rex has spent a lot of time watching his brother(s) fall in love. He hadn't expected to fall into fatherhood along the way.<br/>18. Dark modern AU, set post-'Order 66.' Wounded but not dead (yet), Mace Windu is taken on the run around the globe by the one other survivor of the purge. From his sickbed, he watches Obi-Wan fall apart.<br/>19. A series of 'firsts' for Cody and Obi-Wan (domestic 'verse).<br/>20. Rex gets himself into trouble. His brothers are Not Amused. (domestic 'verse)<br/>21. Cody knows how lucky he is to have his twin. (domestic 'verse) (WARNING: implied/explicit homophobia.)<br/>22. Kenobi, Windu, and shatterpoints; an angsty canon-era interlude.<br/>23. A card game turns up an unexpected opponent for teenaged Han. Modern!AU.<br/>24. An interlude during <i>Attack of the Clones</i>, on the nature of dreams.<br/>25. Another quiet moment near the end of AotC: Padme persuades Master Kenobi into taking care.<br/>26. A western AU, specifically of <i>The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.</i> (Yeah, I don't know either!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter with thanks to [norcumi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/norcumi) and [flamethrower](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower) for dragging me into this hot, sorry mess of clone-dom. I hope you're both very proud. *distant happy-grumbling* And with thanks as ever to my partner-in-crime and Olympic-level Enabler [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn) for giving me way more than half of these ideas in the first place!

*

Rex claims he’s going to be in the sonic fresher for an hour to avoid the fact that his nice new cruiser is now so overstuffed with Togruta that finding a bunk will be a complete fucking nightmare, but Cody’s pretty sure he knows better. He’d been able to smell the slavery from the moment he and his men had risen onto the deck of the ship, waiting to catch the unfortunates plunging from the crumbling mining facility; he’d felt that same miasma of lava and the charred remnants of those who had given up flood into his mouth. General Kenobi had smelled of it, too, as he leapt off the platform next to Rex, landed, and staggered just enough as the ship rolled and pitched to end up in Cody’s bracing arms - the scorch of those damn shock whips had singed his hair, burned tunics and skin into acrid ash.

And so Rex disappears to get back to normal (“Just getting _clean_ , Cody, no need to see if I’m going to drown myself”) and Cody loses sight of Obi-Wan in the chaos, too, only finding him again an hour later on the bridge where he and General Skywalker are sitting together, heads bowed in close, like Kenobi is apologizing for something and Skywalker, for the first time in a long time, has no protest to offer to it. Cody swallows hard, delegates his men to the canteen, to the task of reorganizing the barracks on the lower decks into something that resembles order instead of a refugee camp, and then, when Ahsoka levels a glare at him which could flatten a Gamorrean, and finding himself with little more to do as the ship jumps into hyperspace towards Kiros, Cody gives up and goes to find Rex.

“Must’ve been hell,” he starts out, finding Rex peering at himself in the mirror of the fogged-up fresher with only his underarmor on, frowning as though he didn’t quite recognize himself.

“What, not being able to tear more of the bastards apart?” Rex starts smiling, and there’s actually a cruel sort of glee in it which Cody is damn well _glad_ to see. “Nailing just the one was enough.”

Cody doesn’t even want to know, and so he doesn’t ask. That answer isn’t what he meant by the question, anyhow, but it seems he’ll have to settle for what he gets. “Thanks for bringing back my General. I think we’re at three-two.”

“Four-two, and you know it.”

“Your third rescue didn’t count.”

“Rescuer’s privilege.” Rex scratches at a scab on his cheek and then turns away from the mirror, still with that same hard grin. “C’mon. I know where we’re bunked.”

He puts his arm around Cody’s shoulder as they walk, which Cody isn’t quite sure what to do about. Rex is heavy, warm even through the armor Cody’s still wearing, reminding him of just what he might have lost. Of which there is quite a lot, as it happens, and if they had the chance to be alone he’d spend tonight continuing in that tradition, but they don’t.

“I fully intend to,” Rex says at one point, as the corridors become quieter and the ship around them hums its way into a night cycle.

“What?”

“Fuck you,” Rex says, and Cody feels completely justified in looking at his combat brother like he’s insane. “What?” Rex says, and something in his smile turns sly. “I just spent a week not being able to touch a damn thing without getting half of my back ripped off, so if you don’t mind - ”

“It’s not a question of _minding_ ,” Cody needles, and oh, he _had_ missed this. It shocks him into a much-discouraged, anti-Kaminoan self-introspection every time, and the answers which come back are always on a theme of yes, he wants this, he probably fucking _needs_ this, and there are very few people in this war that he’d trust to take him on this journey. “We’ve got jobs to do, Rex. And if you think I’m going to get into it with you in front of a whole roomful of uncomfortable bunkmates you’ve got another thing coming.”

Rex just pulls them to a stop in front of what is presumably their door, palms in the access code, and leans further into Cody’s side as it swooshes open. It’s small and mostly empty - except for the Jedi Master curled up in the narrow bunk, copper hair a tangle on the pillow, thin strips of bacta flaking off the scars. Obi-Wan is not quite asleep - Cody has more than learned the difference between Jedi meditation and real slumber by now - and the rest of the tiny cabin is very, very empty, both of other passengers and of any other beds.

Cody glares at Rex. “No.”

“Oh yes.”

“Fucking - Rex, _no_ , you crazy bastard - ”

“Are you forgetting it was your idea?”

“We’d had _three bottles_ of Corellian, Rex - ”

“You have all your best ideas when you’re drunk. You should put it on your resume.”

Their whispered argument makes Obi-Wan shift and turn, and then he’s blinking sleepily up at them through the dim cabin light. “Boys,” he says, and smiles as his eyes drift closed, and Cody knows that Rex knows he’s won. That doesn’t stop him from lingering in the doorway, though, as Rex, entirely unashamed, strips down to his leggings and crawls over Obi-Wan, sandwiching himself between the wall and their General, putting an arm around Kenobi’s waist. It’s only then that Obi-Wan appears to come somewhat more awake, and peers curiously down at Rex’s wrist on his hip.

“Hmm,” he says, and looks up at Cody. “Are you coming in? I rather think you should.”

Cody gulps, nods, and steps in far enough that the door can close behind him, still with his helmet under his arm.

“I suppose you’ve thoroughly thought through the chain of command problems,” Obi-Wan yawns, and Rex closes his eyes and nestles into the Jedi’s nape.

“Yeah. Not bothered.”

Something comes out of Cody’s throat that sounds like a pissed-off baby krayt dragon.

“And there’s always - hmmm - ” Obi-Wan’s breath catches as Rex presses closer - “the matter of the Jedi Code.”

“Pretty sure you’re not bothered either,” Rex says lazily, and Cody kind of wants to throw a temper tantrum, and he _would_ were it not for the fact that Obi-Wan seems so damn _calm_ about this, and there’s still about a foot’s width of the bunk left open, and he feels like he’s suddenly wearing way, way too much.

“I concur,” the General says, and this time Cody does indeed swear out loud, because _fucking Jedi and their freaky minds_ , he thinks mutinously, as he drops his helmet and leans over to undo his boots.

Rex has Obi-Wan turned onto his back and quietly gasping by the time Cody squashes in beside them, wishing he could borrow the General’s mind-tricks for just long enough that he could tell Rex with more than just his eyes about how much he dearly wants to hurt him. Rex’s answering grin is infuriating, and Cody wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Obi-Wan murmurs, looking back and forth between them. “Is it ever - ”

“Weird?” Rex supplies, and reaches over to grab Cody’s hip. “C’mon, General. You know what my ego’s like. Who else would I want to fuck?”

“You _asshole_ ,” Cody snarls. Obi-Wan giggles, then, an exhausted and teasing sound, and Cody decides that if this is going to happen, he could at least share his ire, and his capitulation, around.

“Sir?” he asks, and Obi-Wan looks up at him with his arm snug around Rex’s neck as though Cody’s been an idiot for far too long. “Shut up,” Cody says, and leans down to take his kiss.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **UPDATE: this particular oneshot now has a porny follow-up,[here](http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/11753876).**
> 
>  
> 
> I'm into my Edmund Spenser, as those who have seen my work over the past year will be abundantly aware. It turns out he's basically Jedi-prescient, because look what a SW anthem he turned up in his _Amoretti,_ Sonnet 9:
> 
> LONG-WHILE I sought to what I might compare  
> those powrefull eies, which lighten my dark spright,  
> yet find I nought on earth to which I dare  
> resemble th' ymage of their goodly light.  
> Not to the Sun: for they doo shine by night;  
> nor to the Moone: for they are changed neuer;  
> nor to the Starres: for they haue purer sight;  
> nor to the fire: for they consume not euer;  
> Nor to the lightning: for they still perseuer;  
> nor to the Diamond: for they are more tender;  
> nor vnto Christall: for nought may them seuer;  
> nor vnto glasse: such basenesse mought offend her;  
> Then to the Maker selfe they likest be,  
> whose light doth lighten all that here we see.


	2. Chapter 2

_*_

_“May I suggest, Master, that we give Kenobi one last chance? The support of a Jedi of his integrity would be invaluable in establishing the political legitimacy of our Empire.”_

_“Ah, yes. Kenobi.” His Master’s voice went silken. “You have long been interested in Kenobi, haven’t you?”_

_“Of course. His Master was my Padawan; in a sense, he’s practically my grandson - ”_

_“He is too old. Too indoctrinated. Irretrievably poisoned by Jedi fables. We established that on Geonosis, did we not? In his mind, he serves the Force itself; reality is nothing in the face of such conviction.”_

_Dooku sighed. He should, he supposed, have no difficulty with this, having ordered the Jedi Master’s death once already. “True enough, I suppose; how fortunate we are that I never labored under any such illusions.”_

_“Kenobi must die. Today. At your hand. His death may be the code key of the final lock that will seal Skywalker to us forever.”_

_– Matthew Stover, **Revenge of the Sith**_

 *

Darth Tyranus has not been a man who allows himself the luxury of doubt for many years. Wallowing in it in the midst of his preparation for the Chancellor’s abduction is, therefore, an entirely unwelcome distraction. His unease over his role in the plot is not one governed by self-preservation, but rather by uncertainty – rather he finds himself, not for the first time, unwilling to blindly follow his master into the black hole of inevitability that is Anakin Skywalker. There lies danger, the Force whispers: there lies treachery, deceit, and death.

If he were not in such good control of his faculties that he is well aware of the vagaries of his own reaction, Dooku would find these warnings deeply ironic.

His preparations are, in the end, far easier than they have any right to be. Ever since he fled straight back to Coruscant in the wake of Geonosis, he has been able to roam the Core planet completely unmolested, a combination of his own skills and his master’s cloak keeping him well-hidden. With help from the inside, he roams the Senate corridors as though he still belongs there; he does not quite dare to enter the Jedi Temple, but comes close enough to gaze upon the faces of his former friends in the Council chamber. He feels nothing but pity for them, a small, twisted sort of emotion that makes him very tired.

Two weeks before the intended Separatist attack, Dooku sends one final message to Sidious asking him to reconsider his choice of Skywalker. The only response he receives is a command to attend to Sidious in his Senate rooms, and so, cloaked in both hood and the Force, Count Dooku goes.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Sidious says the moment Dooku comes into his presence, not even bothering to turn from the view he is currently taking over Coruscant, hands clasped behind his back. “Your faith in Kenobi’s potential to turn is even worse.”

“The sentimentality of attachment does not always betray,” Dooku says slowly.

“You can hardly rally that argument to your cause, Count. He has never been yours. Whatever lineage you claim was broken by my fallen Darth Maul.”

“The corruption of purity - ” Dooku begins, and then Sidious does turn, nailing Dooku with a stare that promises disappointment.

“Is harder and more rewarding than picking low-hanging fruit, and so-on and so-forth,” Sidious finishes for him, sounding bored. “Ah, but, my friend – when that fruit is so sweet – !”

Sidious’s smile never fails to make Dooku feel thrillingly sick. It vanishes as quickly as it appears, thankfully, and then Sidious motions to the turbolift in the corner of his office, the one which takes him to the private viewing box where he can observe goings-on on the Senate floor. “Kenobi is giving evidence to the Security Committee,” he says ingratiatingly. “Shall we go and feast upon his beauty?”

Oh, and he is beautiful, and it makes Dooku instantly think back to Geonosis and regret, as he has often, that his legendary wits could not have been the match of just this one opponent. Obi-Wan’s face has taken on lines created by war and fatigue; his hair has changed, the cloak is one which only a Master could bear with dignity. He is just back from some godforsaken hellhole in the Outer Rim that was of Dooku’s making, and whose restoration to peace at Kenobi’s hands even he must grudgingly and reluctantly admire.

His Force presence is _blinding_. It flares with righteous indignation at the impertinence of any Senator who dares to question his methods (“You could have simply _blown up_ the ship, General, could you not?”); even when simply buttressing Kenobi’s calm, gently-mocking voice, it swirls in shades of white and gold and desert sky-blue. Even Qui-Gon, whose place in the Force was one of the most assured and natural Dooku was ever to witness, would play second fiddle to this.

The look on Sidious’s face is positively greedy. “Do not think I do not understand your impulse, Count,” he breathes. “If I felt there were a way to win both of them, I would most gladly do so.”

Across the floor, Senator Organa rises in objection to a persistent line of questioning fired down upon the Jedi Master by a tetchy representative from Duros; the intervention of the senior politician quickly brings about the end of the session, and as Obi-Wan bows to those assembled Dooku senses his light diminish and quiet, subsiding into a muted peace. Exhaustion is catching up with their enemy now; it slows, though it does not trip his feet; it lowers his eyes, allows him to accept the hand of the Alderaanian Senator who hastens to offer him refreshment in his office.

Watching the two of them depart, Dooku finds himself unaccountably mournful, and it does not escape Sidious’s notice.

“I shall give you the honor of killing him,” the Sith says. “You will release him into this pathetic Force that loves him so.”

 _So be it_ , Count Dooku thinks; if they are not to have this treasure, and it ensures everything they have hoped for, that consolation will have to be enough.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said I'm not an EU person per se, but this is set very firmly after the events of Karen Miller's wonderful novel _Wild Space_ , in which Bail and Obi get into serious trouble on a Sith planet called Zigoola - I didn't spoil anything too specific. I highly recommend it! And I also screwed around a bit with the already-fuzzy timeline of Obi-Wan becoming a Jedi Master because I can't handle writing him in anything other than his RotS guise, it seems.
> 
> Credit for most of the subtler ideas in this goes to [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn).

*

Three weeks after his return to Coruscant from Zigoola, Senator Bail Organa decides that by far his best way to get back at Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi for services reluctantly rendered is to subject the General to the most frivolous, most politician-infested dinner party he can muster.

Luckily for Bail, and even more unluckily for Kenobi, said bash is also exactly what the Senator needs to remind himself that he is, in fact, still in one piece, and generally alive, and not back on a godsforsaken Sith planet with a lightsaber attached to his belt and a certain Jedi’s blood on his hands. He’d spent his first week back firmly shut into his palatial Senate quarters, recuperating in silence and only turning on his commlink when he was sure it was Breha on the other end; the second week had brought with it a flurry of polite and unabashedly curious inquiries from colleagues, no longer content with Senator Amidala’s deflections, and his cautious re-entry onto the Senate floor once he was certain the face looking back at him in his ‘fresher mirror vaguely resembled the once he’d left with weeks ago, finally revitalized by enough food and sleep.

He hears not a word from Obi-Wan in all that time. In the normal way of things, of course, that wouldn’t have been unusual – he has spent the years since the Naboo trade crisis aware of, but not invested in, the career of any particular Jedi, and even now, in wartime, the newness of the conflict has kept him busy with far too many interests for any one to dominate his attention.

But _this_ problem. _This_ Jedi. That’s something different, now, and always will be.

Obi-Wan’s acceptance of his invitation is formal, gracious, and distant as the man himself, just one of a pile of RSVPs that make their way onto Bail’s secretary’s desk. By the time the Jedi turns up at Bail’s quarters, the Senator has already been waylaid by several dozen pairs of curious delegates, and is coming to relish, rather than dread, the conscious obfuscation of his absence. Even Padme is laughing at him, low and sad, as he changes his story for the fifth time – “Space pirates, yes – tricky situation, don’t you know – fortunate flying, fortunate flying indeed – ” and he knows that she’ll reprimand him for being so blasé about what happened later, but right now, as he finishes his third snifter of Corellian brandy and finally spots Obi-Wan waiting quietly in the doorway, he doesn’t give much of a damn for his own flippancy.

Obi-Wan looks… different. The calm, open stance and flowing tunics are familiar, as are the plant of his feet and hands still in his crossed sleeves, but there Bail’s memories of him start to diverge. On Zigoola, the Jedi’s hair had been long and windswept, easily matted with blood and dirt; it has been cut back short and neatly parted, the beard allowed to thicken and spread. When Padme, smiling, beckons him towards them, Bail thinks he can tell that the shape of Obi-Wan’s robes is different, too – more layers, sharper lines, a certain impractical majesty to the billowing cloak.

“I hear congratulations are in order, _Master_ Kenobi,” Padme says with a hand on the Jedi’s arm, and when Obi-Wan presses a decorous kiss to her cheek it suddenly all makes sense; the new title fits the depth of new understanding in the Jedi’s eyes perfectly.

“They’ve promoted you?” he says, and grasps Obi-Wan’s hand firmly, thankful of its warmth. It’s easier, somehow, seeing him like this; with a new face, there is less call to think back to his old one, how it had looked pressed into the dirt outside the Sith temple on Zigoola, how it had creased with agony.

“Into a Council seat, too – much to my regret,” Obi-Wan says dryly, and that, too, is fresh and welcoming, that conscious teasing. “Master Yoda seemed to think our recent experiences were trial enough to be rewarded. As it were.”

“Well, thank goodness you’ve already reached the top,” Bail grimaces, and knows he sounds like he’s only half-joking. In truth, he isn’t joking at all, because Gods, if that _hell_ was a measure of _accomplishment_ then he’d absolutely hate to think what a Jedi would denote as failure. “Drink?”

It doesn’t take long for their newest guest to be noticed; Obi-Wan may only recently have found his way into Holonet reports, but those reports have been sensational enough (Geonosis, the Corsuscant bombing, Christophsis) that the assembled Senators, most friendly but all information-greedy and convinced that they know exactly what’s best for the Republic’s campaigns against the Separatists in the Outer Rim, swirl in and out of hungry little groups around them.

“We should be taking care to protect Nuros with a full fleet,” one says; another pontificates at length on the need to root out pirates and slavers who are taking advantage of the galactic chaos to penetrate into the mid-Rim worlds; a third insists that special clone strike forces should be used to destroy Separatist fleet vessels without regard to loss of life, since even the most highly-trained clones can easily be replaced. A fourth, who is very drunk, is led away by Padme before he can say more than a couple of sentences about the need to simply destroy Separatist worlds with carpetbombing one by one.

Obi-Wan’s expression changes not a jot through all of it, which, for the first ten minutes or so, allows Bail to remain smug about the role-reversal he has engineered. Even a week in a Jedi’s world, he’d quickly realized upon his return, had been a nightmare he’d never forget; an evening in a politician’s world for Obi-Wan, he’d thought, would be both revenge enough and comfort enough to get his own back.

But then someone asks the Master a question about Jedi battlefield tactics – specifically whether a lightsaber is capable of deflecting anything of a heavier caliber than a handheld blaster – and Bail thinks, seemingly at random, of the heft of his own gun in his hand on Alinta’s space station, on the edges of Wild Space, and it’s as if every cossetted, lazy, feckless Senator in the room is suddenly an enemy with a weapon pointed directly at Obi-Wan’s heart.

 _How easy it is_ , Bail thinks, horrified, as Obi-Wan answers the question with a polite ease (No, in fact, he would be as vulnerable as any being to cannon-blasts, and the Senator who asked the question seems unreasonably disappointed) – how easy to sign that datapad, to put forward that idea in the Senate, to whisper and cajole and move pieces around the board, when he has seen – _he has seen_ , and yet somehow, so easily and quickly forgotten – what it actually means. What Obi-Wan looks like under fire, what these weapons, these battlefields, these metaphorical enemies _do_ to flesh and bone and spirit.

He’s not sure when he’s last felt so ashamed of himself.

When there is next a merciful break in the conversation, as delegates and service droids do a delicate dance of refreshing drinks, Bail takes Obi-Wan by the shoulder and presses his royal Alderaanian seal-ring into the palm of one of Obi-Wan’s hands. “It’s coded to my biometrics,” he murmurs. “It’ll get you onto the balcony.”

The relief in Kenobi’s eyes is barely visible, and certainly not to anyone who does not know him well, but it is there nonetheless as he bows his head to his eager listeners and excuses himself. When, three hours later, the party finally breaks up, and Bail has definitely had too much to drink, he makes his way through the darkening apartment into his private quarters and finds Obi-Wan still out in the fresh air, looking out over the never-dark, bright lights of Coruscant with the metallic-tasting wind ruffling his hair and Bail’s ring snugly on the third finger of his left hand.

“I thought you’d have gone by now.”

Obi-Wan does not turn, instead waiting for Bail to join him at the railing before he speaks. “I found myself in need of quite intense meditation. This seemed as good a place to do it as any.”

“Gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t think they’d be _that_ bad – ”

“Once again, you prove yourself the exception to many rules,” Obi-Wan says, not unkindly. “There is no need to blame them for being out of touch. It’s a big galaxy.”

“Well,” Bail says, running a hand through his hair. “I’m still sorry.”

“I know.”

“Yeah, of course you do.” Bail points a suspicious finger, and feels curiously like laughing. “No Jedi mind-tricks, remember.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Obi-Wan says loftily, a smile playing on his lips. “How are you, Bail?” he adds, then, lightly serious, and Bail doesn’t know quite what to say.

He needs another brandy to even approach answering the question, actually, and this time Obi-Wan follows him back inside, sliding the doors and shades of the balcony closed behind him with a brief wave of his hand. Bail pours two glasses rather than one out of instinct and habit, and Obi-Wan’s fingers close briefly around his in accepting his portion, chilled by the night air.

“Better,” the Senator finally says, as honestly as he can manage. “What about you?”

“Much better,” Obi-Wan agrees. He looks small inside his new tunics, his silhouette making him look much bigger than he is, but Bail knows from experience, now, what power lies underneath. “It’s a start.”

Bail feels warm and ever-so-slightly hazy, and thinks, for a moment, fancifully – though really, he’s seen enough in this past month to have realized by this time that there are fanciful things aplenty in the universe that he should give more credit to – that Obi-Wan has this _glow_ to him, as though his presence brings light and color and certitude with it.

Probably the brandy, he thinks; but then Obi-Wan smiles, puts down his glass, and sidles up into Bail’s chest in order to press a gentle kiss to the Senator’s lips, and it feels a bit too real to be a delusion.

“What was that for?” he says.

“Because you’ve wanted to do that – ” Obi-Wan tilts his head, considers a moment, and then laughs – “ever since Zigoola, I think, and I _do_ hope it’s not because you enjoyed the sight of me suffering, because I’m afraid I’ve never quite been into that sort of thing – ”

Bail stops him talking the only way he knows how, because Obi-Wan is living proof of the fact that insufferable Jedi never _kriffing shut up_ , and a bit later finds himself also complaining quite a lot about the myriad complicated layers Jedi robes and how they might as well have wrapped Obi-Wan up in an onion for all he can get them off, and through it all, Obi-Wan laughs with him, and the darkness retreats, and retreats, and leaves them be until morning.

Bail forgets to ask for his ring back; he doesn’t even miss it, in fact, for a week. It is returned, in answer to his message, in a diplomatic package sent from the Bothuwai fleet, and it glitters in the light as though some greater power has polished the stone.

“Some attachment,” Bail chuckles, and, sliding the ring back into its proper place, returns to his work.

*


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't care much about the EU, still screwing around with little bits of it. Hope you enjoy! (Or not 'enjoy' per se because this is a strange one...)

*

Obi-Wan finds his way into Bail’s Senatorial office only very late at night, after he’s been closeted in Council for several hours and the Coruscanti fog glows from within thanks to thousands of pinpricks of midnight illumination. It feels wrong, to be here alone and in the relative darkness, to have opened the door with the Force and speak to no one on his way in; so much so, in fact, that it is frankly a relief when the door to Bail’s private consultation chamber opens and the Senator himself staggers out, rubbing sleep from his eyes and a blaster in his fist, only to blink incredulously at the sight of Obi-Wan hunched at his desk, scanning through files on his dataport.

“There’s this thing,” Bail yawns, putting down his weapon, “called the Holonet. Also things called ‘appointments,’ and ‘commlinks,’ and ‘decent hours of the evening’ – ”

Obi-Wan hunches a little further, knowing the back of his neck is reddening with something approaching shame, but he’s too distracted to really care about Bail’s lost sleep if it means he has someone to talk to. “My apologies. I needed unrestricted access to Galactic Census records.”

“Don’t you have that at the Jedi Temple?” Bail has come over to him now, scratching at his nightly growth of stubble and rolling his stiff shoulders; the camp bed he keeps at the Senate for when he’s too tired to go home is none too comfortable, it seems.

“It’s not completely unrestricted. There are certain names we cannot search for.”

Bail leans over Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and a moment later Obi-Wan feels the inevitable absence of air against his cheek that speaks of the Senator’s shock.

“I was born on a planet called Stewjon, it seems,” he says, and feels nothing. It is as though this truth has come from a place very far away, which, come to think of it, it has, despite its existence here and now in front of him. “I can’t say I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting it.”

“Neither have I,” Bail says faintly. “Obi-Wan, what – ”

He stands with a surge, having found what he came for; the two names and faces he needed are burned onto his memory as though by a lightsaber. “I should never have let the Senate take _one_ damn hologram of me,” he says stiffly, resolutely keeping his eyes from the windows of the office as he makes his way towards the door, knowing that if he were to look out he’d see one of those horrendous billboards with his and Anakin’s faces painted on them in blazing light and color, as though any of that pompous self-aggrandizing mattered.

“General Kenobi,” Bail says sharply, and though that slows Obi-Wan’s pace he will only allow himself the time to briefly look back at the Senator from Alderaan when he is already halfway out the door. As though realizing he has spoken out of turn, Bail’s face has already softened by the time Obi-Wan meets his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Bail says quietly. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Nothing,” Obi-Wan says, his throat tight. “The damage has already been done.”

*

He’d received the first threat three days beforehand, when he was halfway through a well-deserved (and desperately needed) furlough. With Anakin still in the Outer Rim with Ahsoka in the never-ending chase after Greivous and the Council scattered and busy enough that a full meeting could not be convened, there had been no one to talk to when the encrypted holomessage was patched into his private commlink from an unknown source, no one to talk to when he heard the deep voice say that a ransom was demanded from the Republic for the safe return of the parents of a certain Obi-Wan Kenobi, General and Jedi Master.

The man was thick-set but trim, bearded, stoic; the woman more petite than Obi-Wan would have imagined, pale, all flaming red hair and too-big eyes. The idea that he was an amalgam of them was not difficult to imagine.

He’d meditated on the problem for a full day, alone, and had needed to, as further messages, promising ever more gruesome extortion, continued to arrive. To distract himself from his duties for the sake of beings he had been ordered never to think on, he knew, would be a selfish act. To find them and save them, on the other hand, screamed to him of righteousness and comfort and the alleviation of a guilt whose depth he could not begin to fathom.

He’d had no idea which of these ideas was more unbalanced, but now it did not matter – now, having seen the records of his birth and adoption away to the Temple, he knows the truth.

In wartime, there will be collateral damage. The two unfortunates who are being held in his name are not his mother and father; they do not match the records, they do not hold the mutations that produced the Force that sings angrily through him as he makes his way out of Bail’s office. They are pawns, helpless ones, who have been seized from gods-knew-where in order to make money out of the temptations produced by the Republic’s foolish and careless publicity campaigns.

There is no question now that he must save them. He has already had too many innocents suffer for his sake.

It is no surprise, when he reverse-engineers the holomessage signal back at the Temple, that he finds that its source is on Coruscant; he has long since lost his childhood assumption that one’s home ( _his home_ ) is always the safest and most ordered society compared to others. The lower levels teem with just the sort of beings who would resort to trickery such as this; he is not so much concerned with their methods or their backers as with their location, and the ease with which he discovers them reveals the ploy for what it is – a cheap and pathetic failure, the act of desperate men too stupid to know better.

“Ah, the great Jedi Master!” If their leader has any qualms about how Obi-Wan managed to find them, he does not show them. He would not look out of place among Hondo Ohnaka’s crew, Obi-Wan thinks wryly, though this criminal has none of the pirate’s swagger. His associates crowd about the Jedi in the dark alleyways, turning him this way and that as he advances, thinking they are confusing him into a trap.

 _Not yet_ , the Force whispers, and his now finely-honed sense for negotiation tells him, too, to keep walking, to keep allowing them to think they have won, to keep closing in, until he has the reassurance he needs and their fate is sealed.

It happens sooner than he expects. An open door, quickly slammed closed in his wake; two frightened, shining sets of eyes look up at him, squinting after too long a deprivation of light. He activates his lightsaber, and within minutes, he is able to kneel down before them, hold his hands open on his knees to show that he is not a threat despite what they have just seen him do.

“My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says to the strangers, and sees recognition and distrust flare in their faces, and for good reason. “I am so sorry you suffered this on my account.”

The man swallows hard before speaking. “What are we to you, sir?” he asks hoarsely.

“Nothing,” Obi-Wan says simply, and bows his head forward in their shared grief.

They are relatively unharmed, if malnourished; the woman speaks not at all as he helps them out of the lower levels and ensconces them safely in his speeder. The man speaks, but only a few words – enough to say that his name is Ozan, his wife is Bassa, and they are originally from Dantooine, just one pair in a large community of peasant farmers. They had been on a trip to Naboo to visit distant relatives when they were snatched.

It is all so very ordinary, so very depraved, that it makes Obi-Wan feel very tired indeed.

He radios ahead to the Temple to ask for a Healer to be standing by on his landing platform; his second message asks for the arrangement of two tickets on a civilian transport for them back to the Raioballo sector. Absurdly, Bassa reaches out and touches Obi-Wan’s shoulder, then, as though protesting against the gift of their free return; she hesitates, however, when he looks back at her, and shrinks into her seat again. She is afraid of him; they both are. And with good reason.

His real parents would have good reason to fear him, too.

He leaves them in the dark on the landing platform, knowing that the little assembled group there – Healer, Temple administrators, the tall, quiet form of Mace Windu – will do what he cannot, what he no longer feels capable of doing. He does not take his leave of them, and when he slips away into the Temple proper it seems inevitable that Yoda will be waiting for him at the door to Obi-Wan’s quarters, glittery-eyed and curious.

“Find what you thought you would, you did?”

“Not at all, Master,” Obi-Wan murmurs honestly.

“Then think hard enough on it, have you not,” the old master grumbles. “Seek your family, you will?”

“Of course not,” Obi-Wan says instantly, as though it is a foolish question – and then he stops, and considers, and realizes that once upon a time, he would have ignored his family’s existence for the simple reason that he was forbidden from doing so.

Now, he will remain alone because he chooses not to cause these consequences. It is a heavy truth, that settles like dust in his veins, but it is also the right one – of that he has very little doubt.

Yoda must notice the change in his expression, for he nods and hums through pursed lips. “Learned something this night, you have.”

“Indeed,” Obi-Wan sighs, with a brief bow of acknowledgement at the Grand Master’s continued wisdom. “I wish this harm need not have been done for its sake.”

“That too well you have learned,” Yoda agrees sadly.

They part in silence, and Obi-Wan does not sleep.

*


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this screws with timelines but I couldn't resist when I found out that there's apparently no canon for how Cody got his scar. (If there is and I've missed it do let me know, I'm so curious!)

*

The first time Cody wakes up, it turns out that he’s only capable of opening his right eye. His left feels like a rock has taken up residence deep in his skull.

Not that there’s much to look at. His first assumption is that he’s on Kamino, because that particular shade of scientific, hospital white reminds him of being two days old and staring out of a giant test tube.

It’s _really_ fucking boring.

Trying to move produces nothing. Some bits of him feel light as a feather – somewhere, far away, his nose is itching, but he’ll be damned if it feels like it’s attached to his face anymore – while others drag downward, deadweight. A monumental effort gets him a miniscule twitch of what must be his fingers; when they are grabbed and put back down, what he feels is not so much the slide of skin but a simple, enveloping pressure.

“Easy.” The General swims into view, brows arched. “Take it slow.”

After a minute or so of trying, Cody’s voice crackles into life, still from a fair distance, as though he’s not controlling it at all. “How high _am_ I?”

Kenobi’s face cracks in two, seemingly against its will, and disappears for a moment from Cody’s field of vision as the General laughs.

“Very,” he giggles finally. “Go back to sleep.”

Cody’s always been very good at following orders. This time, it’s also a pleasure.

He still can’t open his left eye the next time he wakes up, and he’s still high as a kite. Whatever they’re giving him was probably designed to knock out bantha. But he’s lucid enough to recognize, first, that that particular shade of white above his head is not, in fact, the delicate color of Kaminoan Lab; and second, that his General is still sitting next to him, casually flicking through a datapad as though there isn’t a war on.

“Where are we?”

“The Coruscant Temple,” Obi-Wan says, without looking up.

Cody rolls his head to the right, and deep in his neck bones and tendons snap and settle. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“How long?”

“Six days, so far.”

Cody stares. He really, really wishes he could open his other eye, now, but he rather suspects that that’s why he’s here, and if it’s been six days then it must be pretty damn serious.

He’s also suddenly, terrifyingly aware that _hell_ no, a clone is not supposed to be taken care of in a Jedi healing ward just for a _start_ , and that’s completely ignoring the fact that everyone knows that a clone who takes longer than a week to heal from anything is probably up for deactivation, because that’s not what they’re for.

 _Six days_.

“C’mere,” he says hoarsely, not even sure why he’s saying it – fucking painkillers – but Kenobi hears him; he puts down the datapad, stands, leans over Cody as though this is the most important place in the galaxy for him, right now.

“’M I gonna live?” Cody asks, suddenly afraid of the answer.

“Of course you are,” Obi-Wan says, while Cody notices perhaps for the first time that this close up, Obi-Wan has these small pinches at the corners of his eyes, and at Cody’s words they tighten and close up close; it’s a tell if ever he’s seen one, and fucking heartbreaking. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought you were going to die.”

“Just needed all sorts of Jedi healing, huh.”

“Well – yes.”

“What is it?”

“Your eye is fine, Cody,” Obi-Wan soothes, patting one of Cody’s hands, still leaving behind only that ghostly impression of weight. “You’ll have a hell of a scar, but Vokara Che is completely confident in your prognosis.”

“Scar, huh?” Something of the drug that is pumping its way through Cody’s veins flares up and makes everything go very warm and comfortable indeed. (What the _hell_ , he almost thinks, and then a moment of clarity – Jedi, they’re used to drugging Jedi, not clones, and he’s guessing it takes a little more effort to knock the Force out of them enough to go to sleep.) “About time I picked up something.”

“Pardon?”

“Gotta have _some_ way to get picked out of the crowd, sir.”

Obi-Wan bends his head down and laughs, again, and if that’s the reaction he’ll get to this Cody wants more of whatever this kriffing drug is, and lots of it.

“Remind me to speak to Rex later about the not-so-healthy benefits of competition,” Obi-Wan chuckles eventually, and then he’s not saying anything much, because Cody has somehow decided that it’s absolutely the best idea in the _world_ to grab fistfuls of his General’s hair and kiss him straight on the mouth, and even though he can’t feel anything much he also decides that yes, it was worth it, as Obi-Wan relaxes down into him and puts a hand on that totally numb, vacant side of his face.

“Sleep, Commander,” Kenobi says, what seems like a very long time later, and once again, Cody does.

The third time he wakes up, there’s an argument being fought over his head. The drugs are ebbing away a bit, he knows, because his left cheek aches like crazy, but that doesn’t make the shouting match going on in front of his nose any less – funny? Is it supposed to be funny? He can’t quite tell, but the General’s face, at least, is hilarious and glorious, overtaken as it is with that look that Cody has been privy to too many times – the one that says Oh for _fuck’s_ sake, this is _not a problem_ so why are you _making it one_ –

“I must insist that he be transferred to a facility more suited to his needs.”

“Oh, forgive me, I hadn’t realized that _basic human anatomy_ was so beyond you!”

“Really, Obi-Wan, such impertinence is beneath you – ”

“I got the damn permissions and I intend to have them fulfilled. He stays here until he’s in recovery.”

“Um,” Cody says, and gets two pairs of furious, sparkling Jedi eyes instantly boring into his own. It’s a bit gorgeous. “Master Jedi – may I ask when said recovery period is likely to happen?”

“You may call me Master Che,” the Twi’lek sniffs, and promptly swirls away from Obi-Wan to put a hand to Cody’s forehead; he doesn’t feel much in general, he knows, and that’s normal, but he’d be hard-put to find more comfort in this touch, which whispers of competence and an iron will and, laid over all, a deep and all-enduring care.

“Hm,” she says, and turns back to the General with a little more consideration in her expression. “He will be fit to travel in two days. Your facilities at the fleet should be more than adequate.”

Obi-Wan’s bow is stiff, but respectful. “Thank you, Vokara. You know it was never my intention to distract you.”

“Nor mine,” Cody says vaguely, and Che gives him a sharp-toothed smile.

“ _You_ were no trouble, Commander,” she says slyly. It takes until she’s long gone for Cody to refocus his attention on Obi-Wan and see that his General is, to put it frankly, in a bit of a royal snit.

“Shh,” Cody says, and flaps out a hand that Kenobi immediately takes. “You shouldn’ta done that.”

“Oh, do be quiet,” Obi-Wan grouses, and lifts Cody’s wrist in order to press an absent-minded kiss to his palm.

He’s still sore all over – which is weird, because it was only his head that had gotten blaster-fried in the explosion – when Obi-Wan comes to get him two days later, travel orders in one hand and bits and pieces of armor in a bag in the other. Cody’s been entirely lucid for twenty-four hours now, and able to see out of his damaged eye for about twelve, both of which are entirely valid reasons to be more than content with his life; but as he gets back into his (thankfully intact and washed) underarmor and Obi-Wan chats gently away about the details of their transport, he’s not inclined to be cheerful. He’s lost weight and muscle tone which will take weeks to regain; gods only knew what trouble his boys had gotten up to in his absence.

Oh, and the whole snogging your commanding officer bit. That was a big one, even if he could sort of try to blame it on extenuating circumstances (read substances).

“Cody?”

He turns to see Obi-Wan at the door, fully suited up, familiar, faded armor on his shoulders under his billowing Jedi cloak. “Are you ready?”

He holds out a hand, just like it’s important to him that Cody takes it, and his face is open and calm, and promises that whatever Cody wants, that’s what he’ll respond to.

So Cody takes that hand, and they step out into the Temple, and they walk together; and Cody’s hazy sight suddenly seems enhanced.

*


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a rewrite of sorts of the "Mandalore Plot" arc in Season 2 of TCW; I like Satine a lot, and I like the idea of her and Obi-Wan together, but I found myself frustrated by the way their pseudo-romance actually played out across the first two episodes (a bit unnecessarily dramatic, no?). So here's a slightly - quieter take, maybe, and a vaguer one. Hope you enjoy it!

*

Quite apart from the fact that he is on his way to ferret out a saboteur, and a dangerous one at that, Obi-Wan would be lying to himself, and quite consciously so, if he were to deny that returning to New Mandalore, without Qui-Gon and with very little sense of what sort of world or civilization or Duchess he will find, worries him immensely.

Hours of meditation while in hyperspace does little to change this predicament, and neither, strangely, does the sight of Sundari’s brilliance, its spires and streets otherwise just the sort of towering, chrome-plated edifices that a Jedi should find inspiring. When Satine steps into her throne room, however, so familiar and simultaneously so alien, it is as if every jagged edge in Obi-Wan’s mind has suddenly smoothed.

Her tongue hasn’t, though, which somehow relaxes him even more. Obi-Wan had worried, before his arrival, that he wouldn’t find that familiar tough, fond, exasperated, whip-strong friend he had left behind on a desolated planet; instead, he is pleased beyond measure to find her grown even more beautiful. There is that same dedicated forcefulness that he had missed, that same torrent of passionate ideals which are as righteous as they are unregulated. Duchess Kryze is more worthy of love and admiration, it appears, than ever before.

It is a distinctly strange sensation, therefore, to remember that he was never a man able to give her what she was due, and, most likely, never will be. If he were to allow it, the regret of this realization would depress him very much indeed.

“It’s so good to see you, Obi-Wan,” she says once they have escaped from Almec and she is showing him around the new Sundari; with her arm through his, she brings them both to a halt on a balcony on the long city walk, looking with pride at the world she has built. “Particularly when it is unlikely that beings such as we are will have many opportunities in these desperate times to see each other, and say what we would. Will you say the same of me?”

“Willingly,” he smiles. “I only wish my visit were for the sake of visiting an old friend, rather than this unpleasant business.”

“I am gratified to hear you say so,” she replies, with a formal and beautiful bow of her head, and they lapse into silence.

“What might you say, then,” she eventually says, thoughtfully, still staring out over the cityscape, “if I were to tell you I’ve been in love with you since we were seventeen?”

He pauses, considering. The question has come sooner that he had expected, but has also been put more calmly than he imagined. “I would say,” he says, settling his hands on the railing beside hers and echoing the direction of her gaze, “hypothetically, of course – that we were both seventeen.”

“Ever the practical man,” Satine says, and to his gentle relief her smile has something of satisfaction about it. “Yes. It was a very long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Not so very long in your case. I mean, judging by the evidence.”

“Flatterer,” she says, and tosses her bejeweled head. “You, on the other hand, have grown old.”

When she turns and sees Obi-Wan’s raised eyebrows, her laugh is still girlish, or perhaps she has deliberately made it so. “No, I’m sorry – that was cruel. But you are tired, General Kenobi,” she adds, her eyes flickering across his face, and as she takes one step forward it would be easy to take her in his arms. “I wish it was not so.”

“You and me both,” Obi-Wan murmurs. He does take hold of Satine’s elbows, then, still unsure as to whether he is going to embrace her or deny them both. She makes the decision for him, leaning forward to press a quick, soft kiss to his lips.

“One must take one’s chances when they come, Obi-Wan,” she whispers, and then, as suddenly as she had approached, she is the one stepping back. “Now, we have arguments to fight and a terrorist network to uncover. Shall we?”

He surprises himself by how genuine the gladness is that springs in his heart, how easy she has made it, how the Force is telling him that he should not let slip the idea that this is something new, and possibly wonderful. “Lead on, my lady.”

They work together as well as they ever did in those frantic months nearly two decades before – not when they were first on the run, nor at the end, when Satine was withdrawing into a whirl of politics and Obi-Wan could only watch from the sidelines, remembering Melida/Daan and quietly petrified at the thought of losing another friend, or worse, losing himself in their struggle – but those weeks when they’d just been running, always running, hardly needing to speak, the connection between them and Qui-Gon rarely needing something so clumsy as speech.

Her fear manifests itself in that old and familiar wit as she frees him from the factory; if he were not in such danger when Vizsla challenges him, he knows she would be distantly laughing at the idea that he is her champion.

The ride back to their ship after their escape, and from Concordia to Mandalore, passes quietly as she examines him for cuts and bruises other than his wrenched shoulder. Even that is familiar, bringing back memories of bumps and falls. “I’m not sure about the beard,” Satine frowns, as her fingers trace his jaw. “It is a mark of the General, I think.”

“Don’t you dare,” he warns. “I’d be turfed out of the Council in a heartbeat if I showed up looking like the Padawan I once was.”

“Such a shame,” she teases as she reseats herself in the pilot’s chair, and he can’t help but chuckle at the irony of it all. She keeps one of her hands in his, working the controls and autopilot with the other; her fingers are long and cool, and he keeps them pressed close.

The first time Obi-Wan worries over their re-found friendship is on board the cruiser back to Coruscant, when her public castigation of him seems to go far beyond any excuse of nervousness at what awaits her and her people. The first time he feels anything other than joy at her presence is when he finds her with Merrik on the bridge, her hands shaking, her neck shying away from his blaster.

If he were any less a Jedi than he is, Obi-Wan would give in to fear instantly, right then, the pain of it lancing through him like a thunderbolt.

The choice Merrik offers them is, in the end, not a choice at all. Obi-Wan would lose nothing in killing him, being more than convinced that he could carry on in life without Satine’s respect if that is what it takes – in truth, he suspects it would not be as simple as all that, but with little time to think he will grasp a firm hold of this false reassurance – but he cannot, will not, imagine a universe in which he, in which she, in which Anakin and thousands upon thousands of other souls will be obliterated from the galaxy by a traitor’s bomb.

He is already halfway through the fluid motion of raising his lightsaber to cut Merrik down when Anakin does it instead.

“Anakin,” he says, not sure whether the warning censure in his voice is for his former Padawan or for himself.

“Don’t worry about it,” Anakin says, satisfaction warring with a more appropriate disgust across his face. “Obi-Wan – ”

He turns at Anakin’s subtle gesture, and sees Satine huddled, shaking, and this time he does not hesitate as he drops to his knees and gathers her close.

“Oh dear,” she says, everything about her trembling. “I should probably let go of you.”

“Probably, yes,” he sighs, and tightens his grip.

*


	7. Chapter 7

*

In the early months of the War, Commander Cody finds himself counting his lucky stars that he was assigned to General Kenobi, and not General Skywalker. He has seven such stars already, accumulated one at a time, meticulously chosen and charted each time he hears that Skywalker and his own counterpart, Captain Rex, have taken the 501st headfirst into another battlefield. Their success rate, he knows, is astonishing; so is their casualty rate, which Cody finds distantly unacceptable thanks to some remnant of self-preservation in his war-trained mind. Skywalker dazzles; he runs and races and flips his starfighters upside-down at every opportunity, and Cody admires him for all of it (as well as the loyalty he knows his clones give him) but he can’t make himself approve.

General Kenobi, who shows up to briefings on time and rolls his eyes at Skywalker’s shenanigans and, Cody suspects, often takes the younger Jedi aside to deliver a stern lecture on the merits of focusing on the _means_ of missions as well as their _ends_ – _and_ who takes on the tasks and duties Cody knows all of the Jedi do even when they don’t have to, like taking meals in the mess and inspecting incoming supplies and quietly reassuring the Shinies that it is more than alright to be fucking terrified no matter what they were designed for – seems a much better fit for what and who Cody knows _he_ is. It’s not easy with Kenobi, per se, and in truth he suspects it’s not supposed to be; but it does damn well click. The 212 th is a battalion any soldier in the universe could be proud of, and Cody knows that his General intends to keep it that way for as long as possible.

It’s only six months in, when Kenobi has come back from a couple of supposedly-relaxing leaves looking like hell (“Sith planet, don’t ask”) and has decided that it was a brilliant idea to face General Grievous twice in hand-to-hand combat by himself, that Cody starts to think that he might have made an error in judgment.

 _It’s not like I haven’t been highly-trained in tactics, for fuck’s sake_ , he wants to say. _It’s not like we can’t take a couple of kriffing potshots at Grievous to keep him busy for a minute or two, damnit. It’s not like you don’t have several hundred men at your disposal who would be glad to die for you, sir._

_It’s not like you have to go in there alone._

Sometimes, when he gets the sense that Kenobi is in a particularly ‘Jedi’ frame of mind – when they’re in hyperspace, usually, and the mess is quiet and fond and obsessed with practical jokes to keep them from going insane with boredom, and their General walks around with a dreamy, distant look on his face, as though he is one with every star flashing brilliantly past – Cody thinks that Obi-Wan knows exactly what he’s thinking, too. He will look at Cody sometimes as if he’s startled by the idea that he’s in good company, like he’s only just been made aware of this source of safety. Cody will stare right back, sometimes, eyebrows raised across their joint stack of mission and tactical reports, as if daring his commanding officer to push that all away.

Neither of them say anything about it out loud, though. Not in those first few months, which rapidly turn into a year, the most fulfilling year Cody will ever have.

But then Jabiim happens, and Cody isn’t there, and when Obi-Wan comes back from the dead and back to the 212th he has been promoted to High General; he has also shrunk inside his clothes, his hair is short and ragged atop his thin face, and Cody has to mentally take note of every trooper which mutters their concern in public as they are being reviewed by the General as he comes aboard ship, the better to discipline them later.

“It’s good to see you, Cody,” Kenobi says, and at least the warmth in his voice and the press of his hand is the same, but Cody will never forgive this.

“Glad to have you back, sir. General Skywalker was driving us all a little crazy.”

Obi-Wan laughs, though there is little mirth in it. “I can well imagine. Shall we?”

Cody barely even remembers the circumstances of the moment when he finally realizes that he has to sit his General’s ass down and tell him in no uncertain terms that it was just the way things _were_ that his life was worth more than his men’s, and that he has to stop risking it. The sieges run together; the advances, the retreats, the recuperations are becoming part of an enormous, galaxy-wide tallying system where the numbers have ceased to hold much meaning.

He remembers this much, though: he remembers a dustbowl of a planet, a Republic retreat under heavy fire. He remembers the look of incipient panic on Kenobi’s face as he and Cody realize simultaneously that the 212th will likely not survive the bombardment of mortars and laser cannons and the inevitable battle droids for long enough to finish loading the gunships that are waiting for them.

“Get them all on board,” the General shouts to Cody over the din of frantic engines and clouds of obliterated scrub. And then he turns, runs in his blood-soaked tunics until he is at the edge of the landing area, and, the wind buffeting him to and fro, lifts his arms in the direction of the multicolored streaks of incoming fire.

For a long moment, Cody thinks the comms in his helmet must have shorted out, so deafening is the silence of the enemy _not_ destroying them. He takes off running, steps in front of Kenobi, takes in the white face, closed eyes, and utter sensation of _peace_ , and raises his head to see that every blaster bolt and bomb and gods knew what else is just hanging there, suspended in space and time.

“Shit,” he breathes, and drops his own blaster, reaching forward to take Kenobi’s shoulders and shake him, hard. “Sir! Sir, you’ve got to fucking stop, you can’t keep this up – ”

“I can,” the General says, eyes opening slightly, in that same, dreamlike voice which Cody knows from those first months, but it shouldn’t be used like this, this is _wrong_. “You should go – ”

“Like _hell_ ,” Cody roars, and shakes him again as, above him, he can hear more mortars thudding against the Force-barrier, more deaths delayed. “Sir,” he says again, and takes a deep breath.

It is the first lie he has ever told. “Sir, they’re all loaded up. We’re good to go.”

Kenobi blinks, and sways, and far above them something blows up. “They are?”

“Yes, sir. Sir, _please –_ ”

“Alright,” Kenobi murmurs, and falls forward in a dead faint into Cody’s arms.

Cody has never run so fast in his life – and he needs to, to outrace gravity. The heat of all of the accumulated armament exploding behind him sears into his back, but in the end, he has timed it perfectly. By the time he staggers close enough for his men to reach down and haul both him and the unconscious General into the last gunship, they are, indeed, on their way the fuck off the planet.

“Damn, sir,” Waxer says, from somewhere in the half-darkness of the dust-encrusted ship, as Boil hurries forward with a meagre and – Cody knows – entirely inadequate field med kit (Kenobi will need Jedi healers for this, ones who know what to do with a fractured mind rather than a broken body). “You gonna let him keep doing that?”

“No,” Cody says, pulling off his helmet and taking a moment to hack up what feels like half a lung. By the time he’s stopped spluttering out the shock, the rest of his squad is clustered around the curled little heap that is their General, keeping him still with firm hands while the gunship banks and soars to escape their pursuers.

 _No_ , he thinks again, to himself. _No, I damn well won’t._

_For all of our sakes._

*


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one requires a bit of an explanation - for a while now, [Mosmorde](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosmorde/pseuds/Mosmorde) and I have been chattering over a [meta](http://commonplacecaz.tumblr.com/tagged/prometheus+on+tatooine) which connects Obi-Wan to [Prometheus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus), the mythical Greek Titan who was punished by the gods (for stealing Fire and giving it to human beings) with being sentenced to have his liver eaten by an eagle every day, after which it would regrow; eventually, Prometheus was freed by the young Hercules. 
> 
> And lo, a fic was born. **Obvious WARNINGS: severe body horror.**

*

Two weeks after Obi-Wan arrives on Tatooine, he dreams of waking up in the desert in chains.

It is a remarkable dream, all things considered. The sun scorching his face feels real enough, leaving certain burns in his wake; as dawn comes on and strengthens, the shivers of the freezing night which wrack his bare torso lessen and fall limp. He is alone, with nothing in sight as far as his eyes can see in any direction; the only sound is the clank of the binders that secure his wrists to rock, to which his hands can find no give and the Force can find no key.

It is a strangely _un_ remarkable dream, however, in the end, for nothing much happens. He watches the suns rise; he sweats; he waits. The desert sings its mournful wind-songs from the tops of its dunes, and Obi-Wan lies idle, and receives nothing in return.

When he wakes into the real world of his desolate little hut, unearthing himself from beneath the sheets he has somehow entwined about himself in the night, he feels hot, as though he is suffering from some fever.

There is plenty to do, oddly enough, in these first few weeks, even out in the solitude of the Jundland Wastes – plenty, at least, to make him forget about the dream altogether. He meditates; he works on evaporators long since abandoned, coaxing them into prolonging his life day by day; he concentrates, studiously and with careful meticulousness, on thinking and feeling nothing.

His dreams appear not to agree with this impulse.

The second time, he wakes in the desert in the full heat of the day, already gasping with it, blinking sand out of his eyes. His hands are again bound; his booted feet, he realizes when he tries to shift and pull himself up into a crouch, likewise. He stares up into an unbearable expanse of bright blue, and it hurts.

There is a noise, now; a creature of some sort, approaching. Obi-Wan lifts his head, cranes around him, and goes very still, holding his breath, at the sight of the krayt dragon which is scuttling towards him. It is a small thing, barely out of infancy, its scales glittering black. For a moment, only, it pauses, staring at him out of one big, shiny eye; and then, inexorably, it steps closer, claws digging silently into sandy earth.

“No,” Obi-Wan says clearly, and summons the Force to help him; the chains do not give, and the dragon does not stop. Obi-Wan kicks; he grunts with the effort of trying to hurl himself free, not quite recognizing the onrushing tide of darkness in his head as the panic that would be quite appropriate to this situation if it were real.

It feels real enough when the dragon takes its first bite, its teeth tearing and mutilating. As though from a great distance, for the briefest of moments, Obi-Wan stares down and does not recognizes the bloody viscera of these entrails to be his.

And then the pain hits, and he screams as he has never done before.

He wakes in the full grip of that wave of panic, his throat already raw from shouting, nausea rushing up his gorge. He is clutching blindly at his stomach as he empties its meager contents onto the sand outside his door; the pain feels _truthful_ , as though while he slept his insides have been scooped out, torn to pieces, and lovingly rearranged.

“By all the gods,” he whispers to himself, and spits out the last of his fouled saliva. “ _What_ …”

The third time, he wakes with the krayt dragon’s face hovering above him, and startles so hard that he fancies he has broken his own wrist in its chains. It considers its meal carefully, this time, as he shouts and struggles; its vile tongue leaves a long, careful lick across Obi-Wan’s straining abdomen before it rears back and strikes. Obi-Wan’s vision flashes white with the agony of it, though whether his brain has sparked and stormed beyond repair or whether it is the damage Tatooine’s suns are doing to him, he cannot tell.

This time, he stays trapped in this hell for long enough to watch his skin repair itself as the dragon, sated, walks away. Sobbing wordlessly, he watches flesh, organs and bone reknit; he sees himself returned unblemished, even as his blood evaporates from the sand.

For the next week, Obi-Wan does not sleep.

He wracks his mind for clues, tucked away in his fractured memories; mourns that he no longer has a Temple Archivist to comm, laments that he never paid enough attention as a youngling to the sorts of myths and strange workings of the Force that did not pertain to his particular circumstances at the time. He meditates, or tries to; what comfort he had previously taken in the desert’s silence now seems an act of mockery, and he dares not even close his eyes for fear he will wake up again in its most distant, empty expanses. The light trances he is able to maintain refresh him, but do nothing to curb what is a deep and growing exhaustion.

“Master,” he whispers one evening into the star-filled sky, as he feels his fate creeping up upon him. “I could use your help right now…”

When he opens his eyes, dawn is breaking, and the krayt dragon is curled up beside him, asleep. Obi-Wan cannot suppress a sudden jerk of his restrained hands at the sight of it; it wakes, slowly, at his movement, lets a foul-smelling yawn out past its razor-sharp teeth.

“Wait,” Obi-Wan begs, as it sniffs the air and, levering itself up onto its stumpy legs, steps over to his side. “Wait – will you not – will you not speak to me?”

The dragon turns to him; its eyes narrow. “What,” it rumbles, “would you have me say?”

Something like relief slackens Obi-Wan’s limbs, though he knows he is still far from safety.

“I would know your name.”

The dragon scoffs, and prods with a claw at Obi-Wan’s side; blood begins to flow, quickly, forced out by his racing heart. “You _know_ my name.”

“And – ah – ” The claw has forced itself deeper, has hit a rib, has pushed its way into places it should not be. “What is this place?”

“One of your own making,” the dragon says.

It takes its fill slowly this time, so slowly – intimately, as though eager for, prodded on by, each of Obi-Wan’s weakening cries. Obi-Wan fancies that he can feel his death approaching like a desert sandstorm, scouring and all-obliterating.

When he wakes, he takes hours to simply breathe, palming his trembling hands over his face, wet with tears; over his torso, which bears no scar or other sign of its torture; over his wrists, so recently slippery with blood.

“Master Yoda,” he says into the silence. “Only what I take with me, eh? Well – ” He turns himself into the wall of the hut, shivering, unwilling for the world to see his shame even if it is empty of living eyes. “I suppose it’s my own fault for never learning how to leave those things behind…”

Despite himself, he falls asleep again, and wakes scrabbling at his bedframe, but – this time – unharmed. If he has been visited, he does not remember it, and it gives him hope.

Obi-Wan walks out onto the nearest dune, stares out towards the midday suns. “There is no emotion,” he breathes. “There is only _peace!_ ”

His voice has risen to a scream by the final word, and it echoes with no seeming end.

The dragon takes its revenge. It is furious, screeching, inhuman, Obi-Wan’s blood flying from its teeth as it wreaks its destruction. Obi-Wan shrieks himself hoarse and senseless, and pulls so hard at his chains that this time, for a single, glorious moment before he wakes, his left hand snaps free of the rock which binds it.

“I am not my past,” he pants, out loud, to the ceiling of the hut.

“You think to deny me?” the dragon hisses, unprompted, at their next meeting. It is crouched between Obi-Wan’s legs, its claws digging rents and tears into his thighs as it paces, tail twitching in perturbation. “I _cannot be excised_.”

“No,” Obi-Wan chokes out. “But you can be reckoned with, and I _will_.”

The dragon snarls, lunges forward, and makes a special meal of Obi-Wan’s heart.

Obi-Wan knows that he is too tired to fight, the next time he wakes in his chains. His lips are cracked and parched; his back burned from where it lies, his eyes sealed shut with sand. But open them he does, and finds –

– he is alone.

Well, not quite alone, for there are small feet approaching; not a dragon’s feet, however. Not a dragon’s claws.

“Hello,” the boy says. He is perhaps ten years old, dressed in the wrapped tunics and leggings of every Tatooine farmer’s boy. His face is obscured by sunlight, his hair shines golden. “What are you doing out here?”

“It’s a good question,” Obi-Wan rasps. He squints, but can make out no more than what he can already see of the boy’s features; he cannot tell whether this is the Tatooine boy he once knew in his past, or one which, perhaps, he will know in his future.

“I’m going out to shoot womp-rats with my friends. We’ve got wicked fast speeders.”

“That sounds like fun.”

The boy turns his head, looks out over the dunes. “There’s a krayt dragon over there. Looks nasty.”

“Indeed it is.”

“I’ll wait with you,” the boy says, “until it goes away.”

He sits down next to Obi-Wan, and puts a small hand on Obi-Wan’s chest.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says, light shining from his eyes. “I won’t leave you.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan murmurs, and smiles. 

*


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is based on [dakt37](http://dakt37.tumblr.com/)'s adorable Single Dad Au/Codway Domestic AU on Tumblr! In essence, all you need to understand this is that Anakin and Obi-Wan are adoptive brothers and Cody, Rex, and Anakin are all cops. I totally recommend you go take a gander at dakt's amazing art, comics, and headcanons for the 'verse!

*

Anakin’s had the drill for Padme’s dinner parties down pat for years. Make sure to invite anyone he wants to see there at least a week in advance; vary the guest list; make sure that there are always at least three other cops for him to talk to; make sure to have in at least a twenty-four pack of beer for said cops; see if one or more of The Brothers is around; if it’s Obi-Wan, wine, if it’s Feemor, cider. The routine has been the same (at least where he is concerned) for years, and with Padme taking care of the rest of it (childcare, her friends and coworkers from the town council, her Besties, food – where the hell does she get such amazing food? She certainly doesn’t cook it) he’s never needed to alter it.

This particular month, he’s got Rex, Cody, and Fives on his docket, alongside Feemor, and by the time Thursday rolls around and he’s dealt with his twelfth affray perp of the week he’s more than ready for an evening of Forgetting, and the more the merrier. Which is why it’s totally fine that Rex apparently invited along their boss’s (and his brother’s) new boyfriend.

“Who is it this time?”

“Dunno,” Rex yawns around 4 p.m., nursing his tenth coffee of the day as he whacks the printer in its side to get it to spit out his latest arrest reports. “All I’ve gotten out of him is ‘cute teacher.’”

“Hey, boss,” Anakin calls, craning his head away from his desk and peering down the room into Cody’s office. “How cute’s the teacher?”

“Pretty damn cute,” comes the bored-sounding reply. “And I’m not your boss, Skywalker.”

“Oo-oh,” Anakin says, rolling his eyes, and grins over at Rex. “Gawd, can you _imagine_?”

“I don’t have to,” Rex says, as he puts on an expression of mock (or perhaps not-so-mock) disgust, his eyes screwing up in their corners. “They’ve been swapping tartan sweaters for months. It’s _awful_.”

“Fuck,” Anakin laughs, rubbing a hand over his face. “We should shove Obi-Wan at them. Instant polyamory.”

“Ugh, shut up,” Rex complains. “It’s weird enough thinking about my own brother having sex without including yours, too.”

He and Rex make their way to the party in a borrowed squad car, bickering all the way about whether it’s worth risking Padme’s wrath in turning on the Thursday Night Football for the guys (Anakin’s all for it, while Rex has far better self-preservation instincts and insists that they can’t turn it on _right_ away, and they’d better keep it on mute), and by the time they arrive Padme’s already in full flow and gorgeous with it in her pearls and bare feet; Anakin sidles through to press a few kisses to her neck and wave at Feemor, who’s been cornered in the kitchen by someone from Padme’s staff, and sighs with what he knows is total happiness.

“Everything under control?”

“More than,” Padme says, only vaguely exasperated with him (a good start). “Kids are in bed, you should go kiss them goodnight before they fall asleep.”

“Will do,” Anakin says, but then he frowns over at the doorway, where – Obi-Wan? – is making conversation with a perplexed-looking Rex, and decides he needs to make a quick detour.

“Hey, what gives?” he asks, slinging an arm over Obi-Wan’s shoulder and accepting with no apology the mild glare he gets as the flap of his hand nearly upsets the wineglass in Obi-Wan’s hand. “Not that I’m not pleased to see you, man, but the Brother Quota has already been filled.”

“I was invited,” Obi-Wan says archly, shrugging Anakin’s forearm off of his tweed (fucking tweed) blazer. “Good to see that you’re as forgetful as ever.”

“Well _I_ didn’t invite you!”

“Hello,” another familiar voice says, and then Cody’s shouldering his way in through the door, an unopened (and _wrapped_ , bloody hell, it’s not anyone’s _birthday_ ) bottle of wine in his hand, still in most of his uniform, and then he pauses, looking back and forth between the three of them. “ – I got held up. And I see you’ve met.”

“Met?”

And then fucking _Cody’s_ got a fucking _hand_ on the small of fucking _Obi-Wan’s_ back, and Rex makes a Very Interesting Noise.

“Cute teacher,” Anakin says faintly.

“No-o,” Rex says slowly.

“Ah,” Obi-Wan murmurs, and then he grins, like the sneaky bastard he is, and oh, Anakin is going to _kill_ him for this. “Cody, I don’t think you’ve met – my adoptive brother, Anakin Skywalker.”

Cody takes a second to take in the flourish of Obi-Wan’s hand, and then looks quickly back and forth between Anakin and Rex, eyebrows shooting upwards. “Really?”

“Oh my god,” Rex says. He’s going a little red around the ears, and then he turns to Anakin and punches him in the arm, hard.

“OW! What the fuck?”

“How could you not know your _brother_ was dating our _boss?_ ”

“Not your boss,” Cody interjects, with a tone of long-suffering, and Obi-Wan sniggers, and when Anakin looks ‘round again he’s taken a step closer into Cody so they’re practically joined at the hip. Not cool.

“He’s _not_ dating our boss,” Anakin glares.

“Because I’m _not your boss –_ ”

“Because it’s not allowed, that’s why!” Anakin continues, putting on his full bluster to hide the remnants of his confusion. “Brothers don’t date bosses!”

Right, and now he’s done it, because the twin looks he’s getting from Cody and Obi-Wan are more than a little hurt and quite a bit more angry, and god, he really needed to teach Obi-Wan how to take a fucking joke someday. Because it is a joke.

…isn’t it?

He starts to reconsider his tone rather rapidly, especially when Cody removes his hand from Obi-Wan’s person and hands the wine bottle over to Rex. “I’m getting the feeling I should go,” the Sergeant mutters.

“No, you shouldn’t.” Obi-Wan says, sparing nearly all of his glare for Anakin. “Cody – ”

“Hey. It’s fine,” Cody says. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

And then he leans in and gives Obi-Wan a very pointed kiss, and Anakin can’t help but stare, with his mouth hanging wide open, because he’d never really been one to speculate about Obi-Wan’s string of failed relationships over the years (they’d never seemed that important, and frankly, he’d had better things to think about even beyond the whole Ew It’s My Brother thing) and he’d certainly never spent any time thinking about his _colleagues’_ love lives beyond seeing their significant others at just this sort of party, but – this looks… loving, and sweet, and like it actually _means_ something, and oh fuck, he really has put his foot into his mouth this time.

Obi-Wan’s look is mild enough when Cody is out the door and he turns his attention back to Anakin, but there’s no mistaking his displeasure. “Well,” he huffs, taking a quick sip of his wine and shoving his glasses up on his nose. “Well done, Anakin. Nothing like screwing up your family life and your work environment in four words or less.”

“Shit,” Anakin says. Rex has quietly abandoned them, the traitorous bastard – probably to go work out this revelation with the help of a few cans of lager, which Anakin honestly can’t blame him for – and he’s got a hell of a mess to fix. “Ben – shit, I’m really sorry. I was just surprised – ”

“Why?” Obi-Wan interrupts, with that same patient, inquisitive push in his voice that Anakin knows he uses on his teenaged students. “For God’s sake, Anakin, you practically introduced us. In this very house, as it happens.”

“I did?” Anakin says weakly.

“Mm.” Obi-Wan finishes his glass, and puts it down carefully on the side-table in the hall, before folding his arms across his chest and regarding Anakin critically. “Have you been drinking?”

“What? No, not yet, I only just got here.”

“Good. Then you can drive me home.”

The ride goes quietly for the most part, what with Anakin trying to drive as though the road is made of eggshells. Obi-Wan looks over at him about ten minutes in, though, and, finally, lets out a brief snort of laughter.

“Your face. It was priceless.”

“Well, you can hardly blame me!”

“No, I suppose not,” Ben muses thoughtfully, and Anakin chances a smile of his own, sensing that he might be able to salvage something from this whole debacle.

“Christ,” Anakin says, and giggles, hard. “I bet you go hiking on weekends.”

“Yes.”

“Breakfast in bed?”

“Obviously.”

“Your students all know and think it’s ‘OMG adorable’?”

“Of course.”

“Elaborate fantasy play where he’s the SWAT cop and you’re the professor-in-distress?”

“Maybe.”

Anakin puts on a bit more of a leer and leans sideways over the gearstick. “Sex-life blackmail I can use ‘round the office?”

“None on offer,” Obi-Wan says, with one eyebrow raised. He only lasts for about three seconds before he leans in too, though, with a wicked grin of his own. “And anyway, even if it _was_ on offer, there’s nothing a rascal like you could use. He’s excellent.”

“Oh, _god_ ,” Anakin moans, straightening up again. “Fuck you.”

“You asked. And yes, indeed. Vigorously.”

“Shut _up_ or you’re walking the rest of the way.”

Obi-Wan relents, and settles back into the passenger seat with a sigh. He looks tired and every inch his thirty-five years, Anakin notices finally – it’s nearing the end of the school term, and his bag in the backseat is probably full of exams, and Anakin’s nearly managed to ruin the other bit of his brother he sees: the part which is, apparently due to Cody, quietly, visibly, and miraculously content.

He’s going to come good on this. He really is.

“So, uh – what are you guys up to on Sunday?”

Obi-Wan’s reply is casual, totally nonchalant. “We’re moving in together.”

Anakin just about drives his car off the road. It seems the only appropriate response, frankly.

*


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A second tie-in to [dakt37](http://dakt37.tumblr.com/)'s CodyWan domestic 'verse - this is a songfic (but not actually because I couldn't bear the idea of doing it straight-up) for John Legend's _[All of Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450p7goxZqg)_.

*

The thing Cody appreciates the most about Obi-Wan at the start, and indeed for a long time, is that they’re both old enough to have conversations which are so far beyond the nonsense they _could_ have had that it just makes everything – easy. Really, really easy, and comfortable, and like it’s just taken as a given that something could happen, or something couldn’t, and either way it’ll all be fine.

They even have that sort of conversation in bed, the morning after they wake up together for the first time, and Cody decides that it’s a Sunday, damn it, and he’s going to call in late to work, because he’s got what feels like acres of overly-pale skin to map out before he feels even the slightest inclination to put any clothes on, let alone a uniform.

“So,” Obi-Wan begins. He’s smiling, has reached over Cody’s back to his bedside table to get his glasses, and the idea that he just wants to see Cody properly is one of the sweetest considerations Cody’s ever been given. “We probably should have had the talk about whether we’d be able to handle adding sex into this relationship before we went at it, huh?”

“Maybe,” Cody yawns, and wraps in tighter. “Though, I dunno – it seems to have worked out okay.”

“I concur,” Obi-Wan says, dropping a kiss into Cody’s hair. “So what shall we talk about?”

“Do we have to?”

“I’m like that. Total chatterbox. I notice you weren’t complaining about it last night.”

“No, but your vocabulary was more interesting then.”

“Hmm,” Obi-Wan sighs, closing his eyes at the lazy roll of Cody’s hips against his. “Alright. Though I should warn you, once the sex wears off there are plenty of imperfections you could complain about.”

Cody blinks, lifts his head and props it on one hand, slides the other up Obi-Wan’s chest and around the back of his neck. “Huh. You’re serious.”

“I feel it’s important to be frank.” Obi-Wan’s still only half-awake, looking sleepily up at him, and doesn’t seem perturbed by his own admission in the slightest. “I’m a fussy, nitpicking worrywart with an insane family who hates driving, noise, and general stupidity or a lack of logical thinking, and who’s never managed to make anything serious stick. You’d have to be crazy to think that’s a good deal.”

“Well, then,” Cody drawls, taking it as a good sign that Obi-Wan’s on the verge of laughter at his own words, “I must be out of my mind. Because I’m a plodding, easily-pleased bureaucrat, also with an insane family, who _likes_ driving, actually enjoys screaming at the television when the football’s on, and also happens to like you rather a lot.”

“Well, yes,” Obi-Wan says dryly, looking pointedly up and down the bed. “I’d say that last point has been very well proven.”

“So what are you worried about, exactly?” Cody murmurs, leaning in.

“At the moment?” Obi-Wan considers, and then he puts a hand on Cody’s wrist, snakes an arm under both of them, starts the slow roll that will let Cody end up on top of him, one of his knees already lifting up into Cody’s palm. “Nothing at all.”

*

They’re on the couch one evening at Cody’s surrounded by the remnants of a movie night, and he’s got his head in Obi-Wan’s lap and is very close to conking out, when Obi-Wan puts a finger lightly on one end of his scar and frowns.

“Am I allowed to ask?”

“About what?” Cody yawns.

“About this. Does it bother you?”

Cody opens his eyes; looks at Obi-Wan, looks at the ceiling, scratches briefly at his cheek. “Bother me in what sense?”

“Forget about it. None of my business.”

“Nah, don’t apologize,” Cody says, flapping out a hand which eventually finds its way into Obi-Wan’s hair and pulls him down for a brief kiss. “It’s not a big deal. I got taken out by a tire iron while busting a guy for possession. Smacked me pretty damn good.”

“I can see,” Obi-Wan murmurs; he bends his head down, leaves lazy, comforting brushes of his lips along the length of raised, knobbly skin. “Doesn’t sound like such a small deal.”

“It's fine. Most of the time,” Cody sighs, turning so he’s got his face pressed into Obi-Wan’s stomach. He really could fall asleep right here. “I fell into a pool in the perp’s back yard when he clocked me. Those are the only bad times – remembering waking up with my head underwater. Freaked me the fuck out at the time, too.”

Obi-Wan’s hands still on his back. “And I just reminded you of it.”

“Shh,” Cody says. “I said it bothers me sometimes. But not tonight.”

It’s true, he realizes, what he’s just said. It almost surprises him – as does Obi-Wan’s reaction when he glances up, and sees bright eyes looking down at him in the dark.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan whispers; and Cody does, indeed, fall asleep right there, and when they wake back up again in the morning they’ve both got aches and pains in places they didn’t even know they had, but somehow they’re all worth it.

*

Cody’s got his habits, as well as his imperfections. He has a set time for getting up from which he rarely deviates, even on his days off (he might stay in bed longer than usual, sure, but the actual ‘waking up and realizing the world hasn’t ended yet’ part never changes); he keeps his desk at the precinct in a very particular state of order, which makes it very easy to tell when either his brother or Skywalker have tampered with it; he makes sure to make time for proving to his colleagues that he’s not just a stick-in-the-mud once a week, when, just to cement the impression, the after-work beers are on him.

He also does a five-mile run every Saturday morning whether he’s working or not, as a way to de-stress from the week and raise the stakes on the usual two miles he does on every other morning. And being a creature of habit means that the first Saturday morning after the first Friday night that he spends at Obi-Wan’s place is no exception, and so he leaves a grumbling, sleepy pile of (completely-freakin’-adorable-when-he’s-only-half-awake) teacher slowly swaddling himself in the covers Cody has abandoned and jogs out into the hazy early-autumn heat.

He’s taken off his sweaty t-shirt and knotted it around his forearm by the time he’s halfway through, and when he gets back he heads into the kitchen to start re-hydrating before he takes the time to see if Obi-Wan’s up or not – so when he wanders back into the book-cluttered living room it just makes the sight before him even funnier.

There are papers _everywhere_. If there’s a system, it’s not visible to the naked eye. Obi-Wan’s got them stacked on chairs, all over the glass table top where Cody had been planning on there being food eventually (so nix that idea), all over the floor. And sitting in the middle of it all, Obi-Wan is just staring at him, with a fountain pen (oh god, really?) in one hand, hovering motionless above the essay of his latest victim.

“Wow,” Cody says, and tosses back the last of his water. “Did a bomb go off in here?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes are very, very wide behind his glasses. “What are you _wearing?_ ” he says eventually, completely hoarse.

A drop of ink from the idle pen is beading ever so slightly at the end of its nib; as Cody watches, grinning, it splats down onto some unfortunate’s lines of careful cursive. For some reason, he doesn’t give a damn. “Not much,” he says, casually. “Does that bother you?”

Obi-Wan makes a strangled, wordless noise, and seconds later Cody finds himself flat on his back on Obi-Wan’s much-abused sofa, with a warm, quick pair of lips all over him.

“You,” Obi-Wan says, letting out a syllable or two in between licks and firm, insistent pushes of his hips, “are – the worst – distraction – I have ever had, you know that?”

“Aw, shucks. I was aiming to be more of a muse.”

“Shut _up_ , Fett.”

Cody gets to return the insult a week later, when he comes yawning into his own kitchen to find that – what with them both due into work early – Obi-Wan has apparently decided that they both need a proper breakfast before they leave, and is vaguely – dancing? – his way around his pots and pans to some sort of classic jazz on the morning radio, Benny Goodman-type stuff which has his head bobbing as he stirs something with one hand while flipping through a textbook with the other.

It’s kind of one of the most attractive things Cody’s ever seen. Especially when he realizes that Obi-Wan’s only half-dressed, and probably doesn’t have any underwear on under his putter-around-the-house pair of jeans.

“Oh, good, you’re up,” Obi-Wan says briskly, laying off his faint humming as he notices Cody in the doorway. He turns off the gas, wipes his hands briefly on a tea towel, and then scoops something steaming and off-yellow out of the nearest frying pan and onto a plate, which he then hands neatly to Cody. “Try that.”

“What is it?”

“Less talking, more eating. You’re due at the office in half an hour, after all.”

Cody takes a bite – and, in retrospect, he’ll realize that this is the moment when he decides he needs to look into house prices, and probably the ins-and-outs of same-sex marital tax laws in their state. “How did you _do_ that?”

“Rhythm and blues, love,” Obi-Wan says, grinning, and turns back to the stove.

Cody quickly shovels in a few more bites, not taking his eyes off Obi-Wan’s backside. “You’ve got a smart mouth, y’know that?” he says, muffled around his food.

“And I will bet you I can do many even _more_ interesting things with it,” Obi-Wan drawls. He definitely, definitely doesn’t have anything on under his jeans. Asshole.

“I’ll take that bet.”

“Hmph,” Obi-Wan sniffs, finally taking his pan off of the burner and dumping it in the sink to cool. “I resent the implication that you think otherwise of my oral prowess – ow! Ow, no, no, put me down – give a man a little _warning_ before you decide to toss him over your very broad shoulders, for pete’s sake – ”

Quite some time later, when Obi-Wan is so tuckered out that he’s only able to use said mouth to communicate in petulant, happy little sighs, Cody is very happy to admit that he’s lost the bet, and lost it badly.

Though, as it turns out, he’s ended up winning far more than he’s let go.

*

Cody’s already parked his car in the driveway of their newly-rented house and unloaded several boxes out onto the tarmac by the time Obi-Wan pulls up across the street in a car he’s apparently borrowed from Anakin (because someone with Obi-Wan’s ultra-careful driving style would never have accumulated that much scraped paint and dented metal). It’s only six a.m. on a Sunday, and there’s wet mist everywhere, and it’s nearly cold enough for them both to chill, but Cody likes it nonetheless – or rather, he likes the fact that they’re not going to have anyone descending on them to ‘help’ for several hours yet.

The door to Anakin’s car clunks shut, and when Cody looks up from hauling a bag of linens out of the back seat of his own car he finds that Obi-Wan’s just standing there on the sidewalk, a heavy-looking open carton of books in his arms (of course) and a pale, pinched look on his face.

“Hey,” Cody says, standing up from his crouch and coming forward to take the box, which Obi-Wan, for some reason, just holds onto tighter. “You okay? You get enough sleep?”

“Yes.”

“You look tired.”

“I am.” Obi-Wan pauses, and then looks down into the books, his elbows hunching into his sides. “Look, I just – I just wanted to apologize in advance for being the one who’s going to fuck this up.”

Well. Okay, that’s unexpected. Or maybe it isn’t, but Cody definitely has the sense that he doesn’t have the time to ponder on the ins and outs of that, not right this second. “Fuck what up?”

“This,” Obi-Wan mumbles, still looking sideways, or at his hands, or pretty much anywhere but Cody’s face as he gives out a little shrug. “Us. The place. Because I’m the neurotic one who’ll blow every tic up into a problem, and every disagreement into a fight, and – ”

“Whoa, hey,” Cody interrupts; he’s not going to say this isn’t scaring him half to death, but it’s making him feel better to take a step forward and make sure he’s got his big hands most of the way around both of Obi-Wan’s shoulders, so he’s guessing that he’s the one in charge of fixing it. “You’re not – yeah, sure. That’s how it works, isn’t it? Of course living together is going to be different, babe. That doesn’t _ever_ mean that it’s impossible from the start.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, well – neither do you.” Cody grabs Obi-Wan’s chin, lifts it just enough that he gets a reluctant pair of baby-blue eyes in return. “You hear me? We’re both going all in. I know I’m getting all of you.”

He looks Obi-Wan up and down, consciously putting on an assessing frown. “And you know what?”

“What?”

“I think I can handle it.”

Obi-Wan’s face cracks open in the middle, lets out the exact gentle smile Cody’s been trying to coax into being. “I have to say – I don’t object to the idea of being handled.”

“Then get your tight little ass inside, put down those books – Jesus, how many boxes of them do you have? – and we’ll see what we can do about that.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Obi-Wan grumbles good-naturedly, as Cody gets behind him and gives him a little shove towards their front door. “Drop the innuendo. We don’t even have a mattress in there yet.”

“It’s a valid point. But the living room _is_ carpeted, and probably deserves some sort of christening.”

“You know what?” Obi-Wan’s looking back at him, the color finally coming back into his face and his shoulders lowering down from their hunch by the second. “I think I love you.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

“Yeah. Carpet?”

“Carpet.”

*


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another tie-in to dakt37's domestic verse (now with its [own sideblog](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/)!) because once someone puts Cute Smut in my head it's gonna happen one way or the other. Hope you enjoy it!

*

The first inkling Cody gets that Obi-Wan might be very into seeing him in his PD uniform is – well, when it becomes completely obvious. He’s not one for being late, but circumstances (and Skywalker’s imbecility) often conspire against this habit, and so they’ve only been together for about two months the first time he shows up at Obi-Wan’s place still in his work duds, having only taken the time to secure his gun at the precinct before jumping into his car (and he’s _still_ five minutes late, damn it), and Obi-Wan’s eyes do a very interesting thing when he opens the door, going all wide and bright.

“Lots of bits and pieces,” he remarks – when they’re done with dinner and he’s settled Cody on his couch with a bottle of the beer he’s started keeping around just for these sorts of nights – before disappearing into the kitchen to finish clearing up.

“Sure,” Cody says, settling back with a sigh and loosening his tie just enough that he can also pop open the top button of his shirt. “There’s a new regulation every few months, practically. Weighs a ton.”

“Show me.”

So Cody does – he shrugs off the duty belt, shows Obi-Wan the radio (turned firmly off, because even Cody isn’t that much of a workaholic that he’ll keep it on on a Tuesday night), the collapsible baton which he hates using, the well-worn spot where the holster gets attached at the start of each shift, the OC spray that he’s never used and never plans to.

Obi-Wan picks up the handcuffs, studies them, looks up at Cody, and grins. Something in Cody’s stomach flips a little at that, and he clears his throat, but what comes out of his mouth is, he knows, something meant to stall, because – well, _wow_ , but he’s equally sure that starting down that path tonight would be a phenomenally stupid idea.

“Like what you see, do you?” he eventually blurts out.

“Very much,” Obi-Wan says, still smiling, as he packs the cuffs back onto the belt. “But right now? I think you need to get _out_ of all of that.”

Cody is very happy to oblige, and, the next day, promptly forgets all about everything that’s been implied. Pulling a fourteen-hour shift and getting tangled up in a massive drugs at one of Coruscant City’s local universities tends to do that.

So it’s another three weeks until he’s back at Obi-Wan’s place and he’s dead tired and has the football on (Obi-Wan hadn’t even known what station it was being broadcast over, the utter dork) while their takeout dinner is on its way, and Obi-Wan slowly wanders into the room during a commercial break, pondering at a piece of notebook paper in his hand.

“Fuschia,” he says, and Cody just stares.

“What?”

“Fuschia,” Obi-Wan says again, and looks up from the apparent list in his hand, frowning slightly. “As a safe-word. What do you think?”

It takes a few moments of almighty struggle for Cody not to spit out his beer. “Uh,” he says finally, sounding very intelligent indeed.

“Yes?”

“Shares too many letters with ‘fuck,’” Cody croaks, and thinks _what the actual hell, Fett._

“Hm,” Obi-Wan says thoughtfully, and turns away again to go back into the kitchen, for all the world like they’re talking about the weather and not negotiating sex play. “Good point. How about ‘watermelon?’”

Cody puts down his drink, walks into the kitchen with his hands firmly in his pockets so they won’t go exploring _too_ precipitously, and leans down to growl into Obi-Wan’s ear where he’s standing over the stove. “Are you _trying_ to make me strangle you?”

“Maybe,” Obi-Wan shrugs, which sends Cody’s mind down even more startling paths. “But I’ll settle for being restrained, officer.”

“Fuck,” Cody breathes, and then Obi-Wan turns around in his arms and his hands come out of his pockets real damn fast.

A week after _that_ , he throws his duty belt into the back of his car when he’s leaving the station, and deposits it, carefully, just out of reach (but not out of sight) just inside Obi-Wan’s front door when he arrives. It’s a chilly evening, just shading into autumn, and with the windows open they’re all curled up into each other on the couch while Obi-Wan finishes up some grading. It’s nearly midnight, in fact, by the time he takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, sighs, and tosses his last paper down into the stack by his side.

And then he says “Thank you,” with his fingers wrapped warmly around Cody’s, and Cody’s not sure what he’s being told.

“Hm?”

“For realizing that I don’t actually do – this,” Obi-Wan says with a tired smile, rubbing his glasses on his sleeve before he puts them back on. “And that I’m petrified, and that saying those things to you were perhaps the bravest things I’ve ever said, and that I don’t know what to do now.”

Cody thinks for a moment, idly sliding his hand into Obi-Wan’s hair at the back of his neck. “Okay,” he says. “Whatever you want, babe.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Never doubt that.”

Obi-Wan looks at him carefully, his eyes narrowing fractionally. “Show me how they work?” he murmurs, quietly.

And so Cody does – shows him the lever locks and the key, an innocuous and tiny little thing. He flips one of them closed around his own wrist, and the other to one of Obi-Wan’s much skinnier ones, and Obi-Wan laughs at all the images it no doubt conjures of comedy routines he’s seen for years and years of prat falls and getting caught around poles and knocking heads together.

Cody unlocks them from himself, puts the second cuff around Obi-Wan’s other wrist, and then leaves the key on the coffee table, his hands quietly in his lap. “What do you think?”

Obi-Wan looks carefully down at the short length of chain, tests the weight of them, rotates his hands slightly.

And then he looks up and Cody, lifts those same hands, and the chain is cold as it presses into the back of Cody’s neck when they kiss; when Cody grabs at the warming links and pushes Obi-Wan’s arms into the sofa above his head Obi-Wan fucking _keens_ , and they barely get their pants off before they’re coming hard enough that Cody is, very briefly, worried that the neighbors might think a murder has been committed.

“How very interesting,” Obi-Wan says, once he’s panted his way into semi-coherency.

Cody lifts his head in bewildered, happy disbelief. “That’s all you have to say?”

“For the moment,” Obi-Wan cackles, and lifts his head forward for another of Cody’s kisses.

He has a _lot_ to say the next time Cody shows up in uniform, as it turns out. Mainly teasing, at first, about how he’s been conspiring to commit a felony, and when Cody asks what said felony might be, it turns out to be assaulting a police officer. The suggestion that Sergeant Fett should take preventative action against such criminal behavior is met with enthusiasm, and the fortuitous discovery that the Obi-Wan’s bedposts are very sturdy indeed, even when subjected to the finest steel Smith and Wesson can produce.

They never need the safe word, in the end. (Though Skywalker would probably be quite proud, actually, that the one thing they decided would be perfect to bring _anything_ to a grinding halt was a gritted cry of ‘ _ANAKIN!_ ’)

*


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Themed snippets written for ObiTine Week on Tumblr; they can also be seen on [my blog](http://commonplacecaz.tumblr.com/).

*

**1 – Memories**

Satine Kryze has seen an entire world unmade and made again. She has seen plots of land made rubble and built up with skyscrapers; she has seen bodies and faces that she knew rendered unrecognizable. The ravages of age are nothing compared to the changes wrought by war, and then by the tortuous work of peace. She lives so thoroughly with the demands and parameters of the present, and has done for so long, that when the past does intrude on her thoughts, it is muddied and altered – it holds possibilities only, never certainties.

And so she is not surprised, nor is she saddened, by the fact that she does not recognize on sight the man who presents himself to her court as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Nor does she quite recognize him by ear; his voice has deepened, taken on gravitas, though his gentle condescension is the same.

It takes days for her memory to meld with her future. “Oh,” he says, upon the recollection of him dropping her, and when his ears redden she can smell rain, and the scorch of blaster-fire, and him scrambling to his feet, all gangly teenaged limbs and flustered annoyance.

She smiles at him, and thinks that perhaps, if she is allowed it and if she can see this in him, she might reach back one day and see if the girl that was Satine still exists.

*

**2 – Regret**

Obi-Wan regrets not tucking her hair behind her ear, when it is disheveled in the aftermath of the terrorist’s bomb. He regrets his initial refusal to allow her to half-carry him from the mine when he is clutching his twisted shoulder in close, for the hurt that flashes across Satine’s face before she manhandles him into her space anyway. He regrets paying attention to his commlink at her dinner on board her flagship, instead of to her hands as they perform the intricate dance of banquet etiquette; regrets wasting the opportunity to tease her about how she had never put much stock in manners, when last he knew her.

He regrets the smallest things. It is his defense, maybe, against the idea that he could ever move to repair his greatest mistakes.

*

**3 – Thoughts and Feelings**

“I feel cold,” Satine says, and her hands shiver within his.

“It’s shock. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen someone killed,” Obi-Wan replies, and reaches over her to the divan she keeps in her quarters on the Mandalorian flagship, piled high with rich cloth and furs. She still looks thin once he has wrapped one around her shoulders.

“Not so long,” she chides, and it takes him a moment (for the bodies, too many of them, have run together in his mind of late) to remember that she saw him kill those iron-clad warriors on Concordia, and the bomber who passed in her arms.

“Too long since you last held a blaster, then,” he says, quieter, and kneels by her side; it is the only way he can meet her lowered gaze. “Seventeen years?”

“Thereabouts,” she says, a smile pulling briefly at her lips, no doubt at the outrage that he dares estimate her age. “I threw it away.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Satine shifts, pulls the blanket closer around her, clutches at its hems. “Cold,” she whispers.

*

**4 – Stars**

There are no stars visible on Coruscant. It is something Satine had not thought she would miss – she had never given much thought to the fact that Sundari’s brilliance dimmed at night and Mandalore’s countryside remained unspoiled and carefully maintained enough that she had taken the sight of galaxies and nebulas for granted.

Obi-Wan notices that she is pining for something, in her first few days of pleading to the Senate. She thinks he notices that she finds the abundance of light disturbing – that its polluted clouds keep her awake at night, interrupt her sleep, leave her tired and wan in the rich, fractured light of morning.

“For you,” he says, at the end of her third day in the cavernous Senate, so dark and yet so populated with fluorescence that it makes her head ache. He puts a small, cool ball of metal in her hand before he bows and leaves her.

She closes all the shutters she can to her chambers, waits for her throbbing eyes to adjust, and feels her way towards her combination commlink and projector – and the stars erupt across her ceiling, familiar, fixed, for all the world as though she is on her private balcony in her Sundari home.

She sleeps more soundly than she has in weeks.

*

**5 – What Could Have Been**

“And what do you think?” she asks, when the service droid in Organa’s magnificent receiving chamber has renewed their drinks.

Obi-Wan takes a sip, allows himself the necessity of a moment’s careful thought. “I agree entirely,” he says. “I would have made a terrible consort.”

“Indubitably,” Satine laughs.

“I suspect we would have been very unhappy,” he adds, gentler; she does not protest, but her sudden solemnity has more of a visible edge of curiosity about it than he would have expected.

“Perhaps,” she muses. “As the children we were then.”

“Am I now meant to speculate based on the adults we are?” Obi-Wan asks, and realizes too late what he has said, and that he cannot offer any answer. “Satine, forgive me. I – ”

“No,” she interrupts, and to his guilty relief her smile has turned sad. “I suspect we would not be able to come to any realistic conclusions.”

She puts down her glass; he kisses her hand, tests the heavy weight of her rings against his palm.

*

**6 – Home**

Satine carries a small piece of unrefined beskar ore with her wherever she goes; it turns iridescent blue and silver in the right sorts of light, when she turns it absently in the pale hollows of her hands when she is in a session of the Senate on Corsucant, when she is traveling through hyperspace, when she stands with her fists clenched in front of Almec or Merrick in council and argues against them. When she is running from Viszla it is hidden in her boot, and seems to pulse with her outrage.

Obi-Wan sees it, once, and asks her permission to hold it, which she allows (quicker and easier than she would have expected of herself, in truth).

“Beskar,” he says, a slight question in his voice. “Your Mandalorian iron – is it not?”

“It is. It reminds me of home.”

“It’s beautiful,” he says, and when he gives it back to her it is warm around its rough edges, as though imbued with brief life. “And the only substance in the galaxy which can fully repel any attack from a lightsaber, if I’m not mistaken.”

She has known of this irony for years. Why he chooses to mention it, she cannot guess. 

*


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even knowwwww. Here, have a Sad where Ben ghosts himself.

*

When he first arrives, it feels as though he has already wandered for a long time.

Coruscant is bright and undimmed, still, the great star destroyers still in their spaceports and the streets still tumbling with the excited chatter of the Grand Review. And he is there, in a dismal little bar not far from Dex’s, nursing a shot of something luminously green with a clone commander sitting uneasy and straight-backed in his fatigues next to him, still too respectful to know what he will become.

 _No scar yet_ , Ben thinks absentmindedly, and watches as the soldier stands, gives his future (or current, the onrushing war has everything confused) superior a brief nod, and leaves him to it.

Twice, now, as Ben has been watching, he has lifted a hand to the back of his neck as though to pull at hair which is no longer there. Has it been hours, Ben tries to remember, or only minutes since he had cut it away, thinking _no longer practical_ and _not for a battlefield, anyway_ , or that he had become sick and tired of its clamminess in rain or snow?

“You look troubled, Master Jedi,” Ben says, and sits, and waves over the bartender, so very aware of a lightly-wary gaze. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Will it help?” Obi-Wan says, a slight laugh in his voice.

“No,” Ben says wryly, lifting his own glass in a brief toast. “But surely it is the principle of the thing.”

“Quite,” Obi-Wan murmurs, and, with the solicitousness of a stranger, smiles and nods back.

* 

Ben has very little idea of where he has come from, or where he is going. Nor does he remember things in order, any more: time has little meaning when one has become infinite. He has duties, and fulfills them – he speaks to Luke, watches children who have been placed in his charge. These are mere threads, now, reeling him back into the fabric of life, and they are not of his spinning.

Each moment has its own purpose, however – that, at least, never changes. And so there must be for this moment, too – this instant of silence on a dustbowl of a planet (whose name is distant and thoroughly unimportant in his memory) with prairies left shredded and scattered by cannon fire, with the husks of city blocks teetering and creaking in the wind.

There he is, sitting still, contemplating – head lowered, elbows on his knees, lightsaber hilt in his nerveless hands. If Ben remembers correctly, he is grieving men who never even had names – or at least, not names that were known to him.

“You get around, Elder,” Obi-Wan says, with his eyes closed, with a slight shake of his head. When he looks up at Ben the shifting light catches bruises on cheekbones and blood on his knuckles, all the little wounds forgotten in the face of much greater hurt. “Are you all right?”

“I think I’m meant to be asking that question,” Ben says, and settles himself down, huffing slightly at the stiffness of his joints. “I came to see if there was anything I could do for you.”

The calculating look he receives stirs Ben’s own muscle memory – a most curious sensation. “You are a Jedi.”

“I was. I am no longer.”

“Fair enough,” Obi-Wan says, and laughs, a single chuckle deep in his throat. “I congratulate you on getting out while you could.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Obi-Wan shifts; his feet are firmly planted in the earth, every inch of him arranged to provide at least the semblance of utter stability. “What help did you think you could offer?”

Ben looks up at a sky drawing towards dusk, made red, pink, and gold by the afterburn of laser blasts. “The knowledge that your apprentice is still alive, and you have not yet failed.”

Obi-Wan stares. “Small comfort,” he says, finally.

“And yet enough, is it not?” Ben asks, and stands, knowing that the heavy miasma of uncertainty has lifted – that the strand of the Force he has followed has split at its end and is unraveling, drawing him back into its grace.

“High General,” a voice calls from the ruins (one voice out of multitudes), and Obi-Wan turns, and Ben vanishes.

* 

There are other threads he travels; several, he thinks, though not many of them register themselves as essential with his chief task already performed. A whispered word, a touch to dispel dreams; this, too, is the help he can offer, though it changes nothing. He wonders at Obi-Wan, sometimes, as though from a distance which disproves their intimacy. It has simply been long enough, he realizes, and he has been dragged kicking and screaming through the light for long enough, that he has forgotten what his devastation ever felt like.

This is still no consolation, however, when it breaks out anew.

He would never wish it upon anyone, least of all himself. 

*

Mos Eisley is still at dawn, with its inhabitants still drunk or simply uncaring of the day’s bright insistence that they wake. Ben walks around its outskirts for some time, curiously nostalgic for the grit and sweat of it, before he finds Obi-Wan loading up his meagre hoversled. His burden has been discharged, the child safely delivered; it is only him, now, and the stillness that comes over him when he catches sight of Ben.

“Hello,” Obi-Wan breathes.

“Hello there,” Ben says. “There is something I must tell you.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan says abruptly, and his grin slips sideways, as though exhausted by its own weight. “Give me some credit,” he continues, nearly angry, but not with either of them in particular. “I may always have clung to imagined futures too tightly, but I hope I have never failed to recognize the truth of what is in front of me. I knew from the start, back on Coruscant.”

He reaches out to Ben – tries to put a finger on the edge of his cloak, and sighs when he cannot, when, as though made of a desert mirage, he can reach nothing but what the Force has chosen to show him, what cannot and will never be real.

“You gave me counsel, once,” he says, so very quietly. “Is there none you can give me now?”

Ben puts a hand on his, hopes beyond hope that the Force will allow this – the reunion, however brief, in the flesh of a life ripped asunder.

“Nothing you do not already know,” he says, and fades.

 _Nothing that has not already left an ache in your bones_.

*


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another tie-in to [dakt37](http://dakt37.tumblr.com/)'s [Domestic 'Verse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/)!

*

Obi-Wan only encounters one of Cody’s exes once, and in Cody’s mind, it’s not all that important. It’s a bonus, actually, in the moment, that Rex is actually somewhat apologetic for his typical boisterous drag-Cody-the-fuck-out-of-doors routine; the pick-up game of half-tackle football which ensues in their local park with a motley collection of Rex’s work and non-work friends is mildly enjoyable, if mostly for the sarcastic comments Obi-Wan keeps calling out from the bench where he is very determinedly watching, rather than participating in, the action.

It’s nice enough, in fact, that Cody almost doesn’t notice the familiarity of the hand which cups him around the back of his neck at the end of the game, when they’re all sweaty and Rex is looking smug. Bill hasn’t changed much – he’s still enormous, still got that vaguely furious twinkle in his eye and the cocksure grin that Cody had been quietly crazy about in college.

And he’s still an asshole, which is fairly quickly proven when his preferred method of saying hello to an old ‘friend’ is to give Cody a firm pat on the cheek and ask him, in a voice just loud enough to be heard by pretty much everyone, whether he’s still a Yes Man. Rex immediately starts to turn purple, and it’s probably a good thing that it’s getting dark, because that means there’s only a few minutes left before everyone starts piling into their cars and Cody can go sit next to Obi-Wan, who’s looking over his book with a distinctly wary gaze.

“Was that what I think it was?” he asks, once Cody has sat down and waved off Rex, who looks like he’s destined to go home and possibly murder his punching bag.

“Yup.”

Obi-Wan closes the book, taps its cover thoughtfully. “Old boyfriend?”

“Couple of months, in college. He couldn’t stand not being on top. In a manner of speaking.”

“Does it bother you?”

Cody rolls some of the tension out of his neck, prods at a bruise on his shin, and winces. “Should it? It was fifteen years ago. I broke up with him, he threw my rep around for a couple of weeks, he will forever be a dick. ‘S not like he broke my heart or anything.”

“You are quite incredible, you know that?” Obi-Wan says to him, much later, when they’re at home and he’s cleaned himself up and he’s half-asleep with his head tucked under Obi-Wan’s chin. At the time, yawning, he just takes the compliment as-is.

It doesn’t take him long to realize, though, that Obi-Wan actually _does_ find there to be something amazing about the idea that Cody has a Teflon heart – or, at least, one that finds it easy to keep the past where it belongs. He’s known since the start of their relationship, after all, that Obi-Wan is constitutionally incapable of not flirting with anyone with a pulse (which, frankly, is something so Other to Cody that he can’t help but find it endearing); it always seemed inevitable, then, that he’d meet some of _his_ exes around, and of course he does.

It’s only when he starts to realize that he’s met or heard mention of a _lot_ of them that he starts to think it’s strange that he and Obi-Wan have never sat down and had That Talk that every other couple in the universe seems to have had, about previous loves and potential heartbreaks – and that that very omission might be important.

Bruck Chun sounds hilarious. Anakin does an impression of him at Christmas, the first Cody attends at the Skywalker-Amidala-Jinn-whoever-the-hell’s-in-town household, and through the haze of eggnog Cody finds himself sniggering like an ass over the impression Anakin does of what he calls Obi-Wan’s “googly teenagers in love-hate” face. Obi-Wan blushes and sulks in a corner for half an hour, but looks like he wants to laugh. Several more cups of eggnog later, when they’re firmly ensconced back at Obi-Wan’s apartment, he manages to persuade Obi-Wan into showing him an old photograph of a glowering white-haired boy; by morning, said eggnog has also persuaded him to forget all about it.

Siri Tachi seems sweeter, a sharp-faced blond girl clearly grown up far beyond her sixteen years. She’d left Coruscant City in their senior year of high school, Obi-Wan says, with a touch of regret, when the conversation turns one evening to old friends and schoolmates and the strange tug of absence Cody still feels whenever Rex is too far away.

He meets Ventress, once (she doesn’t seem to have a first name, or at least she never willingly gives it), in the course of his duties at work, and when Anakin, sniggering, mentions something about how ‘Only Obi-Wan ever knew how to _handle_ her,’ he almost doesn’t believe it. But it turns out there are photos of that, too (kept by Anakin, this time, as blackmail material), and the more he thinks about it the more it makes sense. A twisted, scary, fascinatingly hot sort of sense, but sense nonetheless. She had, after all, apparently attempted to seduce Rex within thirty seconds of her entering the police station, and the look in her eyes when she’d realized she was dealing with twins was positively diabolical.

Quinlan Vos is a bit of a surprise, and one which leaves Cody alternately relieved and exasperated. The relief comes from knowing that, of all people, the cheeky sneak with dreadlocks who shows up at Obi-Wan’s door one weekend when he and Cody are barely awake is the one who apparently managed to break an eighteen-year-old Obi-Wan’s brain when it came to sex and meticulously put it back together in a far more healthy way, as only a four-years-older senior with a ready supply of smiles and mild hallucinogens could. The exasperation follows quickly in its wake, however, when he realizes that Quinlan has clearly had a hard time leaving those college days behind, and that it will take multiple firm, repeated refusals to convince him that no, Cody is not the sort of bro totally up for sharing, just for old time’s sake.

It’s Satine, though, whom Cody actually wants to be friends with when they meet, and in fact he finds it easy to be. She’s sharp-witted and loud and everything Padme would be if she gave less of a fuck about bulldozing over those in her way; at one of Padme’s monthly gatherings the two of them are as thick as thieves, and it’s no surprise, either, that she and Obi-Wan go at each other like cats and dogs for the entire evening, with him becoming more and more oblivious to anything else than she.

“Unstoppable,” Padme says once to Cody, shaking her head fondly at the growing stormcloud of argument brewing in her kitchen. “They’re the best entertainment around.”

“Yeah, about that – how come – ?”

“Hah,” Padme says, and then, after quickly looking at Cody as though to gauge his mood, grins. “If it was anyone else who asked, I wouldn’t tell them,” she says, reaching sideways to hug him briefly. “They wanted different things. Stuff happens. I’m just glad neither of them stayed out of it for too long. Anakin says it was pretty bad.”

Cody can believe it, now that he’s getting used to just how much Obi-Wan loves, seemingly without thinking or worrying about how much he might get hurt – or, well, Cody’s been aware of that second bit from the beginning, but he’s also known _himself_ well enough to be very sure that he wouldn’t be hurting Obi-Wan one damn iota if he could help it. And it’s also no surprise to discover that Obi-Wan himself is the only one who doesn’t realize what everyone else knows, as becomes abundantly clear when, with Obi-Wan already out in the car and Cody putting his jacket on, it’s Satine who comes sidling out of the dispersing crowd of friends to give him a kiss on the cheek, and a beautiful smile which shows him very clearly what Obi-Wan had been in love with, once.

“He’ll need calming down,” she says, tiredly perfect in her pearls. “You do it better than anyone.”

“If he’s worried about his own feelings, I can’t do much about that.”

“No, silly,” she says, and shakes her head. “He’s worried about _you_.”

It takes most of the drive home, with Obi-Wan still quietly stewing in the passenger seat, for Cody to figure that one out, and he’s still in his coat when he stands with his arms crossed in the living room and, watching Obi-Wan putter about while determinedly avoiding his gaze, and tries to make things right.

“I’m not jealous, you know.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Obi-Wan sighs.

“Seriously. If I have a problem, I’ll tell you about it.”

“Would you, though?” Obi-Wan challenges. He’s still angry, but it’s turned inward, now, and he sounds thoroughly miserable.

“ _Yes_ , I fucking would, because _I_ don’t have any doubts,” Cody says sharply, and then curses himself for an idiot when he sees Obi-Wan flinch.

“Damnit,” he mutters, and finally takes off his jacket, tossing it over the nearest chair so he can go over to Obi-Wan and fold him, however stiff and resistant he might be, into his arms.

“It’s really okay,” he says, gently. “Why should I care, when I’ve got you now?”

Obi-Wan shudders into him, lets out a hoarse laugh as he goes limp. “Keep telling me that,” he sighs. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, and I’ll need to hear it a few more times to accept it.”

“Yeah?” Cody grins. “Who got there before me?”

“Bail,” Obi-Wan says, sounding reluctant again as they settle on the couch, keeping himself wedged firmly into Cody’s side. “He didn’t come with any strings attached, either – after Satine.”

“Hm,” Cody says thoughtfully, and leans down to Obi-Wan’s neck, leaving brief kisses along the length of it. “Guess I know who your rebound’ll be next time, then.”

“Damn you,” Obi-Wan laughs, and swats at him, but he’s already turning boneless under Cody’s touch, and once that process starts it very rarely stops again.

“Besides – whatever made you think I wouldn’t find it attractive to have snagged myself an experienced little nympho?”

“I _beg_ your par – mmph! Stop it this instant – that’s not – whoever said you were the law-abiding brother should be indicted for perjury on _several_ counts – ”

Cody’s capable of jealousy. He’s always known that; he’s hardly the sort of man, after all, to admit that he’s above the sort of deep ache that sometimes came from thinking that he wasn’t good enough, or that there was someone better. But not this time – and he’s certainly not going to let that change.

*


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Includes events (the Coruscant bombing) from Karen Miller’s _Wild Space_.

*

Anakin first sees them as a nine-year-old, distantly, and wonders for a long time whether he had simply dreamt it.

They are beautiful; golden, perhaps, or simply a reflection of the warm, dusty light inside the palace in Theed, as the Jedi he has only spoken to once, Qui-Gon’s friend, stands alone at the end of a corridor. Behind him, the wings stretch out, enormous, as though suspended in time and place.

They are bringing up a cloth-wrapped body from the bowels of the palace. The Naboo guards struggle under its weight.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin calls hesitantly. The hooded figure pauses, and then Kenobi turns, and just like that, the wings are gone. Later that night, at Qui-Gon’s pyre, Anakin doesn’t think it’s the right time to ask.

It is several years before Anakin sees them again, and then, again, he has little time to contemplate what his Master is, or is not – not right away, at any rate. In the arena on Geonosis, Obi-Wan’s grief mingles with that Anakin can feel radiating off of every other Jedi as they are surrounded, and they stumble over the bodies of their fallen brothers and sisters. There is a brightness, barely visible at the edges of Anakin’s consciousness, around Obi-Wan’s body as he kneels and searches for life in a Knight Anakin knows was his friend; it is momentary, fleeting, and Anakin is inclined to think his eyes mistaken.

But then he is flying backwards across a desolate hangar with Dooku’s lightsaber having taken his arm, and when he lands, his breath driven from his body and pain turning his vision black and brown, he feels something warm and heavy enveloping him, pressing, straining with effort and hope.

He opens his eyes, and finds that he is wrapped in golden light.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan forces out. His master is exhausted and desperate with it, hands alternately clutching at his wounds and trying to assess Anakin’s own. Around them, the wings break their fall downwards into darkness, though they seem to shimmer in and out of existence with every shudder of pain Anakin can feel radiating through his Master.

After some unknown amount of time, Obi-Wan is forced to give up. He falls unconscious; the wings vanish as though they were never there, and Anakin stares up at the rock ceiling, already feeling cold and bereft.

Their subsequent conversation on Coruscant, after Obi-Wan has spent several hours in closed-door discussions with Yoda, feels long overdue.

“Where do they come from? What are you?”

“I have very little idea. The Temple has tried several times to trace my birth-parents for testing, without success.”

“Can you fly?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never made the attempt.”

“Why?”

“Think back, Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice takes on that familiar tone of teacherly exasperation, needling Anakin to work out the answer for himself. “You have seen them at least twice now, if I’m not mistaken. Did you notice a pattern?”

“You were – upset. Hurt, or grieving.”

“Quite.”

Anakin stays silent for a long moment. “You hide them because – because you think they make you _less of a Jedi_?”

“They don’t _make_ me anything. But they _do_ appear to be symptoms of my frailties. You can hardly blame me for resenting their manifestations.”

It is barely two weeks later when Anakin understands exactly what he means, and finds himself resenting them, too. The explosions in Coruscant’s administrative district – the first of what will surely be many vile Separatist terrorist attacks – send a uniquely familiar shriek of agony through his mind, distracting him even from Padme’s presence, and when he races to the scene in his speeder, searching desperately for Obi-Wan, he finds that he _knows_ he is looking for a very particular thing.

He finds it. The wings are blood-soaked, ragged, mirroring the state of the Jedi Master they are attached to with a glorious, sickening precision. It is easy to catch sight of Obi-Wan lying crumpled on the rooftop, surrounded as he is by this splayed, sullied light.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan rasps, and coughs, and the wings spasm, almost keening in their own right.

“Hush, now,” Anakin stammers, and presses his hands to what wounds he can see, studiously ignoring the blood he can see bubbling up between his Master’s lips as they wait for the Healers. “Peace, Master. Please, peace – ”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan breathes, as though remembering and comforted by Anakin’s presence, and just like that, the wings are gone, and he lies quietly in Anakin’s arms.

During the war, Anakin sees the wings twice more. The first time occurs fleetingly, on a battlefield, when the fight is going badly and they are losing too many men. It turns out, on that day, that Obi-Wan can indeed fly; and fly he does, depositing wounded clone troopers he has rescued behind the line for treatment before he lands, stumbles, and, looking around him, takes enough of a deep breath that he returns to normal before taking off running again on foot. The soldiers of the 212th, closely watched and reprimanded by Commander Cody, say nothing.

The second time is when Obi-Wan returns from Mandalore, from which news of Duchess Satine’s death has traveled faster than he. He descends from the ramp of his ship in red and black Mando’a armor, his lightsaber ignited in his hand, and the wings flaring all around him, as though looking only for something to avenge.

He spends a full week in solitary meditation. Anakin tries to speak to him about it, once – tries to tell him that Anakin, at least, would never see any shame in what his Master apparently thinks is a public humiliation – but somehow, he never finds the right words.

Anakin forgets a lot of things, after that.

Certainly, by the time he is standing on a landing platform on Mustafar with Padme lying motionless in front of him, he has forgotten all about what his Master is. His traitorous, rudderless, _useless_ Master has been reduced to Darth’s Vader’s final challenge – a worthy one, perhaps, but one he will not be defeated by.

Kenobi kneels at Padme’s side. He puts a hand to her cheek, whispers her name.

When she does not reply, the wings burst forth, and they blaze like a sun.

Vader snarls, wanting instead to grin. “You think to fight for her, old man?”

“I do, and I will.” The hiss and snap of Kenobi’s lightsaber seems augmented, as though fire is running along its length. “And for all the others.”

 _I will rip them out of you, scarecrow,_ Vader thinks. _I will tear them from your back and leave you and your heart forever bloodied._

He nearly does, once, in the fight that follows. When he puts his metal hand into flying feathers and pulls with all his strength, Kenobi shrieks as though something has reached inside his body and plucked away some vital organ; it is only the renewed clash of lightsabers that saves him, and from that point onwards he fights like a man possessed.

(Perhaps, Vader thinks once, he is.)

The last thing he sees of Mustafar, from his blackened, agonizing husk, is the crouched, angelic form of the Traitor Kenobi kneeling at the top of the lava slope, weeping.

Slowly, so slowly, the wings fade away; they fold, shrivel, shrink.

It is only a man that gets up and staggers away; only a man that Anakin Skywalker will never see again.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N: this chapter now has an amazing counterpart piece of fanart by dyingsighs -[here](http://dyingsighs.tumblr.com/post/135117075524/the-wings-burst-forth-and-they-blaze-like-a-sun)!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More domestic CodyWan for [swdomesticverse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com)! (What the hell - it's the holidays and I felt like fluff.)

*

They've only been sleeping together for two weeks, and no-one else knows about them yet (or at least, no one else who really matters - i.e. every single high school student in the district thinks it’s the best thing to happen since sliced bread while their parents remain thankfully oblivious), when Cody gets handed the unexpected chance to move things with Obi-Wan along far faster than he would have planned. Or, you know - that's what anybody else would think when handed the opportunity to whisk one's new squeeze (which, no, but 'boyfriend' seems childish and they are nowhere fucking near 'partner' territory yet) away to a cabin in the middle of nowhere over a weekend. Given that it's Cody, it just means that he dithers over it until it's almost too late: not out of any particular fear that he'll screw it up or that Obi-Wan will think it's presumptuous, but because it seems like a bit of a chore to put it all together even beyond him waffling over whether it's the right thing to do. 

It's only when he reminds himself that this is all new, and that it's supposed to be exciting, that he figures he might as well jump in feet-first; and in the end, the proposal that they drive out of Coruscant City and into the wooded district where his distant relatives flog around a cottage for most of the year that happens to be empty on this particular weekend in September is accepted with no hesitation whatsoever. Obi-Wan is busy and nearly frantic with it at this time of year, Cody knows - it's come perilously close to being a source of guilt when they've been together, actually, knowing that Cody is taking time away from his preparation for the start of a semester's full of new challenges. 

Thankfully, it's only taken a few cheekily-stern looks from Obi-Wan (usually when Cody is apologizing for waking him late, at the end of a shift, when he just hasn't been able to keep himself from using the spare key Obi-Wan had given him) to persuade him that if he was in the way, he would be told, and he isn't, and that this - god, this, when they're waking up together and Cody is still vaguely startled by the sensation of knowing there's someone else in his apartment with him again, and in his bed? damn, that's even better - is what they both want. And so the cabin it is. 

It's an early-release Friday, and still summer-warm, when he picks up Obi-Wan from the school, and it takes a few honks to make sure he gets his unmarked squad car (still identifiable from the aerial and the fact that he hadn't had time to change before getting behind the wheel) through the crowds of ambling students trudging out the doors, some of which wave at him in recognition. It's busy enough, in fact, that he doesn't spot Obi-Wan until he's opening the back door and sliding his bag (it's a little battered leather suitcase, and if that isn't telling Cody doesn't know what is) into the pile of supplies Cody's decided it would be a good idea to bring along, and then getting into the front seat. He looks tired, as he always does, but then there's that little thrill, that still hasn't gotten old, when he turns to Cody and grins like he's got all the energy in the world and several plans for how to use it - and leans over to kiss him, right there. (Someone outside the car makes a hilarious noise at that, which is kind of perfect.) 

"Right on time," Obi-Wan says, when he breaks off and settles back in his seat, scraping his hair back out of his face. "It looks like you've packed for a week." 

"Well, you know how it is. Countryside. Wilderness. Bears." 

Cody looks down, sees that Obi-Wan's seatbelt is very firmly fastened and his arms crossed, and grins. "Go ahead, you can ask." 

"Bug spray?" 

"Maximum-strength, two cans." 

"Route planned out?" 

"Already plugged into the GPS." 

"Gas?" 

"Full tank." 

"Excellent." Obi-Wan's shoulders relax a fraction, finally, and his smile is warm as he reaches sideways and puts an open palm on Cody's thigh. "Thank you." 

It's a long ride, and one which they fill with relatively meaningless chatter; it's not like him to indulge in this sort of thing, Cody knows, and though he also knows Obi-Wan is more than a little bit more unbuttoned than him in certain ways he suspects it's been a while for him, too. Which is why it's such a relief to realize that he's rarely been so relaxed, not for a long time, and that he needs to stop blowing Rex off when his twin looks at him funny at work, and smiles, and says sly-rude things about the apparent benefits of a good shag. 

But Cody also doesn't like worrying about things, especially when they're things he should by all rights be pleased about, and so it bothers him - as they pull up to the cabin in the falling light of dusk and he looks over at where Obi-Wan is dozing in the passenger seat with his glasses crooked across his face - that all he can think about is how he might be penning them both into something more serious, with this stunt, and that even though he knows they're both the sort of serious people to not get involved if it couldn't Be Something, that that doesn't mean they're home free. 

He reaches across anyway, and hasn't gotten tired of how Obi-Wan looks, flustered and slightly discombobulated, when coming out of sleep. "Rise and shine. If you can check that the generator and boiler are up and running, I'll get our stuff inside." 

"Hm," Obi-Wan says, still mostly nonverbal, and leans briefly into Cody's hand before turning to the door. 

The electricity comes on as Cody is feeling his way into the kitchen with his arms full of the sort of miscellanea one always needs on vacation - stocking up on essentials, coffee, stuff you'd eat and drink in college and think was good for you. By the time he's finished checking the taps and filling the cupboards there's a draft at his back, and he turns to see that Obi-Wan has left a full glass of wine for him on the wide wooden table and is out on the deck, leaning over the railing and looking for the last glimmers of light skipping across the distant lake. 

If he were a romantic man, Cody would spend a fair while just watching him like that. Strange to relate: these days, he's sort of feeling like one, and so he's slow to emerge, pulling the screen door shut behind him. There's a sort of wicker lie-low out there too, a wide, low arrangement with a mildewed set of cushions which looks surprisingly comfortable, and when Cody lowers himself down onto it Obi-Wan turns and is far quicker to join him, still only half awake and not yet chilled by the evening. 

"Wherever did you find this place?" he asks; his own wineglass is already half empty and if Cody's looking for a sign that this is definitely alright, having Obi-Wan's legs summarily swung across his seems as good a one as any. 

"It belongs to a distant relative. It tends to get passed around all my brothers and innumerable cousins in the summer." 

"It's a wonder it's still standing, then." 

"You don't know anything about them yet," Cody drawls, feeling exceptionally lazy indeed with the fingers of his free hand in Obi-Wan's hair. "They could all be like me. Law-abiding and decent at DIY." 

"Are you?" 

"Not really." 

"Liar. My assumption stands." 

"You'll regret it when I sic them on you." 

"I doubt it." Obi-Wan looks straight at him, then, and suddenly doesn't look tired at all. "If they're anything like you I'll be glad to meet them." 

"Yeah?" Obi-Wan has Cody's wrist in his hand, now, and is absently kissing the inside of it, which is making it rather hard to concentrate on talking. "Not sure that's such a good idea. For your own sake." 

"Well, I'd better resign myself to the eventuality." 

Cody can't stop the grin; damn it, he's getting giddy, and he's realizing that Obi-Wan knows it, too, and the nettling cheek of it is rapidly being overwhelmed by the fact that Obi-Wan is getting closer just like the lazy tease Cody is learning he is, and he's also not joking - because he wouldn't - and that's fucking incredible. "How come?" 

"Stop worrying," Obi-Wan murmurs. "I'm not going anywhere." 

Kissing is nice. Kissing Obi-Wan, as Cody has been learning, is brilliant. Kissing out-of-doors, at nighttime, with summer ending and autumn coming on, is also pretty pleasant - until he remembers that it's actually pretty chilly, and that he's hardly going to have sex on a creaky, listing piece of deck furniture, and that it's therefore very welcome when Obi-Wan hauls him upright while hurriedly reminding him to bring the glasses back inside before some poor forest creature decides to wander over and get soused, which Cody doesn't really give a fuck about - but hey, if it scores him points. 

The bedroom doesn't have curtains, which Cody knows is going to be irritating come morning when they want to indulge in more sleep than they ever get at home. What it _does_  have is a king-sized bed with an extremely sturdy frame and an electric blanket, and, set into a corner - miraculously - a gas fireplace which creates just the right sort of light. 

Most of it goes like that, and there doesn't seem to be any need to question it - not when Cody finally ventures out (without clothes, because fuck that) to grab various snacks from the kitchen at noon the next day; not when they manage to completely destroy the ancient pots and pans that have been left to corrode under the sink in an attempt to cook _something_  for dinner that isn't reminiscent of summer camp food; not when they go to bed on the second night and Cody decides that the devil is always in the detail and maps out Obi-Wan's body in quadrants, with long, urgent fingers grasping through his hair. 

They fall asleep early on Sunday, for the treat of one more round of figuring out exactly how each other's arms and elbows work when they're curled into each other, and then get up at two a.m. for the drive back. Obi-Wan is mostly conked out for the first few hours, which Cody finds he actually prefers - he needs space, he thinks, and time, to reconcile himself to the fact that it won't always be like this. That it won't be like this, in fact, later on this exact same day, and that eventually there _will_ be those meetings with Rex and the boys and god knows who else on Obi-Wan's side of the family, and there will always be the continuing daily grind of their jobs, and even though he knows that these are the things which make them _them_  he's finding it difficult to give up on this. 

It feels unique. And that's strange. And he's not used to it, as wonderful as it is. 

He's starting to tire by the time they reach Coruscant's outskirts, and is glad that he had the foresight to officially take the morning off; Obi-Wan perks up around six, which is normal for his schedule, and spends a few minutes peering at himself in the mirror in his sunvisor, straightening collars and cuffs. 

"Do your students care?" 

"I care," Obi-Wan smiles. "And they'll notice. They were very invested in trying to find out where I was going with my suitcase on Friday." 

"What did you tell them?" 

They're pulling up to the school, where the first wave of students are only just starting to stagger in, by the time Obi-Wan sees fit to answer.  

"That it was none of their business," he says, when he's got his bag in his hand and he's leaning in to say goodbye through the driver's window, "and that I expected to enjoy myself very much." 

"Huh," Cody muses. "And did you?" 

Obi-Wan's grin is quick and makes him look very young, which is new, though the mischief isn't. "Come 'round tonight and I'll remind you just how much I did," he says casually.  

Cody watches him go inside, and decides that, you know what - he'll be going straight in to work after all, and taking a regular shift.  

Getting home by six feels a lot more important, now, than it ever has before.

*


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dad!Rex! CodyWan fluff! Angsty Tup storyline! Brotherly clone feels! All courtesy of @[swdomesticverse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/). *G*

*

Rex isn’t surprised when Kix and Jesse settle down. He’s happy to the point of tears at their weddings (and owns it), cries when their kids are born (and doesn’t own that, because fuck off, it's a baby, he doesn't need to justify himself), and settles quickly into the role of ever-supportive brother and occasional uncle. When it comes to being a twin, however, there’s always been a closeness which he finds near to impossible to put casually from his mind - and though he's never quite been clear on whether Cody cares to know what game Rex is getting, Rex is unapologetic in making very clear that he has a stake in his brother's love life.

Neither of them have been much for relationships. Rex was decent with the coeds in college, and still fancies his chances on any given night - but in truth, he's always been far more invested, as a secret gossip, in making sure he has the scoop on everyone at the station, and that includes his blood. Anakin is a fucking godsend in this regard, even if he's happily settled; the tales of married chaos that Rex hears from his eager beaver partner (most of which, he's fairly sure, prove that Padme is unquestionably the mentally stable one in the Skywalker household) go a long way towards satisfying his need to make determinedly sure that the people he cares about are happy.

Cody's been a difficult one to keep track of in that regard. Rex's intuition had, of course, told him about his twin's preferences long before Cody came out (which didn't stop him from being dead fucking proud when it finally did happen). He'd had several years of very obviously meddling in Cody's life after that, at least; college was the perfect opportunity, particularly since Rex managed to realize pretty damn quick that college-age men were assholes, and being gay didn't exclude them from that basic fact. His immediate impulse to murder the first frat boy who threw his brother over after a few weeks, however, was met with nothing but calm; it took several months before he was able to accept that Cody, true to sensible, practical form, was not about to let any squandered crush bring him down, and that he needed no help in recovering from anything his exes could throw at him.

There are smaller things, though, that Rex has always been able to see in his twin which tell him just where Cody's heart lies. So it's no real surprise when, several years into their joint careers in the CCPD and with Cody already promoted a few steps above him (rule-following nark), he notices that his brother is, in his own particular way, excited about someone.

It starts out simply - a very faint distraction in Cody's manners, one which means he's spinning pencils idly between his fingers instead of completing paperwork down to the second, or when he takes a second to snap out of it when asked a question. They've been living apart for two years, now, after a few years of co-habiting when they needed each other around on an hourly basis to get through basic training, but Rex can still pick up on the signs.

Cooler conversations are the best, and, in Rex's case, necessary at least once a day - even if, in true cop fashion, they are more often held over terrible coffee and Jesse's baked goods. "So, who is he?"

"Hmm?"

"You can't fool me, man. Spill."

Cody shrugs, which just gets Rex even more intrigued, because Cody is also not the type to want to cover shit up unless he really cares about it, or wants to make sure he gets it perfect. "Local teacher. I don't think you'd know him."

"Cute?"

Cody's deadpan look is legendary. "I do have _some_ standards."

"Could've fooled me."

"Fuck off," Cody grumbles, without any heat, and they leave it there for nearly two months. Until, that is, Cody comes in to work one morning late and so fucking relaxed that it seems to make the entire building go quiet and sleepy, and Rex pops his head into his brother's office with the biggest shit-eating grin he can muster.

"So, rate him for me. One to ten?"

Cody stares. "You're creepy, you know that?" he says eventually, but he's got that half-smile on that tells Rex that he's downright smug with himself. It looks good. It's been a while.

"C'mon, bro, work with me. Positions, stamina? I'm guessing it was decent given the buildup and the fact that you've got that whole 'fucked out' look going on - "

"I will press harassment charges," Cody warns, and shoves him out with a laugh.

Meeting Obi-Wan, during that fiasco of a dinner party at Anakin's, leaves Rex in a bit of a daze - not just for the convoluted way in which it's all turned out, but because it's just _strange_ to see Cody's eternal state of adulthood and fulfillment being _realized_ in the shape of this particular man, and because of the frankly astounding news that for the first time, he's going so far as to hitch his entire life to someone else's. Rex shows up at their new shared apartment on the evening of the day when they move in together, bearing a six-pack in a sheepish attempt at apology for his reaction the previous night; he's greeted by a worn-out Cody at the doorway, who nevertheless draws him in with a hug and the welcome news that they're unpacked enough to know where the bottle-opener is, at least.

What he sees makes Rex briefly giddy on his brother's behalf, because it just makes so much _sense_. There are stacks of boxes in the living room all filled with fucking _books_ , and though it's Cody's old couch in that room the table that has taken up position in half of the kitchen has handmade wooden chairs which look like they were built by someone's grandpa; Obi-Wan is bustling and tired as he puts glasses neatly into cupboards, and looks downright wrong in a ratty t-shirt and sneakers, and Rex knows straight off that their version of a housewarming will have wine and quiet music on somewhere and everyone will be expected to wear work shirts (but will be allowed to have the top two buttons undone).

And then, because Rex is a detective, damnit, he actually starts poking around in the boxes while Cody sighs something about getting them out of his way and duly starts shoving one into the bathroom off the hallway, and in among the stacks of school paperwork Rex finds himself very firmly directed away from a small carry-all labeled 'Bedroom.'

"Nuh-uh," Cody grins, and promptly lifts it away from Rex's seeking fingers. "You don't wanna know."

It clicks, and Rex giggles, hard. "Fuck me," he says happily.

"I can't deny that I'd enjoy the view, but I'm fairly sure that's illegal," Obi-Wan says as he comes in from the kitchen. He's wiping off his glasses on his sleeve, but when he puts them back on and reaches out to Rex it's easy to see just how similar he and Cody are in many respects: how they're more high-strung than you would ever expect at first glance, and how much effort they put into being careful while making it look effort-less. It's a very grown-up thing, and one Cody has always had, and which Rex has always been catching up to.

"Hello again," Obi-Wan continues, and his handshake for Rex is firm and inviting.

"Hey. I'm sorry about last night, by the way - "

"Oh, please. That was Anakin."

"Yeah, it was," Rex admits, and smiles again. "How'd you put up with a brother like _that?_ "

"Barely."

He should've brought Tup, Rex thinks later, when they've had a takeout dinner and are all sleepily around the still-cluttered table, with Obi-Wan yawning behind his hands and looking at his watch (he probably needs to get up hellishly early for school, Rex realizes, and it's another piece that falls into place to remember that Cody can fall asleep again on a dime, and won't mind, and that's fantastic). Tup would have _loved_ seeing this, is really what he thinks, and he says as much, only to get identical snorts of gentle derision from either side.

"You still have a lot to learn about teenagers," Obi-Wan says, shaking his head. "Being in the same room as one of his teachers on a purely social occasion? The poor boy would have wanted to melt."

"Hah. I guess," Rex shrugs, though there's something about what Obi-Wan said that niggles at him, and it takes him a moment to figure it out. "What do you mean by 'still'?"

Obi-Wan looks quickly between him and Cody. "I'm sorry - I was under the impression that that was the arrangement."

"Not quite yet," Cody corrects mildly. Obi-Wan's eyebrows rise, but only with curiosity, and then there's a minute or two of leave-taking, of Obi-Wan heading to bed and Cody shaking his head fondly at Rex and heading back into the kitchen to get a bottle of the Good Stuff. It must be serious, Rex thinks, if he's being sat down to be Talked To with the help of two fingers' worth of Blue Label.

"So, what was he talking about?"

"You adopting Tup," Cody says bluntly, and waits for a second, smirking slightly, as Rex coughs out what little of the whisky he'd already drunk.

Cody's good at common sense. Rex is self-aware enough, at least, to realize that, conversely, he often has very little of it. He sometimes needs a kick in the ass, and his brothers are always the best at providing it, to recognize things that have been going on underneath his nose. He goes home that night in a daze, and finds Tup asleep on the sofa in his miniscule spare room, and thinks: he's been here for six months, more or less. The kid showed up at the station after school so often that he has had a spare key to Rex's place for about five months. Rex's grocery bills have been going up, though he hasn't cared to account for it precisely. They actually need to buy shampoo, now, for Tup's fucking ridiculous hair that clogs the drains and floats around everywhere like he's a shedding cat. Rex has replaced old textbooks, paid school fees and rare library fines, listened to hours of patter about school when Tup deigns to open up and learned far more about Mr. Kenobi than he'd ever heard from Cody at first.

It's also then that he remembers that their always-distant parents have been making noises about getting even more distant - geographically - and that every time it comes up he tends to laugh and roll his eyes and think ' _typical_ '.

Tup doesn't. His thin frame hunches small and his eyes pinch at their corners, and more often than not he'll tell a funny story about his friend Ahsoka, and how they scamper around the City unsupervised ("I mean, it's her idea, I dunno, it's usually fun") whenever they get the chance and how it's always Dex's Diner that they like best.

He could leave, Rex thinks, lying awake that night and staring straight up at the ceiling. _They could take him,_ and it wouldn't be the end of the world, he knows that, but -

Hell no.

No way.

The process of it is a fucking nightmare. There's more paperwork than Rex would ever have thought possible. There's more of a _wrench_ than he'd ever thought he'd feel when he says to himself, in various ways, that his parents are fucking out-and-out wrong, and that he can't explain away their lack of care just because they're them, or because they're supposed to be in charge. And it fucking hurts, too, he knows it does - it hurts Tup, and that's the only thing that matters. It hurts when he has to get the kid to sign shit, to sit him down and say that it can only start if he wants it to, and if he proclaims it loud and clear and often. Rex hates himself for demanding that, and he deserves it, too.

It means more than he can ever describe that every one of the brothers backs him up to the hilt. The initial relief comes when he realizes there will be no group hug, no support party, no loud declarations - nothing that would spook Tup into thinking even harder on the undeserved mess his young life has become. There's Kix showing up occasionally, instead, taking Tup out to a movie with his wife and reminding him that adults can be friends and equals as well as authority figures; there's Jesse, who doesn't often see them in person, but who leaves trays of covered cupcakes and cookies on the doorstep of Rex's apartment building that keep Tup (ravenous, growing, shy Tup) fed in the afternoons when Rex isn't yet home from work; Fives, who comes over and turns on the game and is the only one, usually, that Tup will still allow to roughhouse with him, memorably taking out most of Rex's coffee table on one occasion; Echo, who is always online and available to talk if Tup wants to, who can teach him codes and find him patched copies of any game he could possibly want for the few moments when the poor kid isn't working or worrying.

And Cody - Cody's there all the time, always. He's racked up so much time off from working overtime and weekends (not so much now that he and Obi-Wan are together, but it's still enough) that he's the one who can drop everything at any time and go with Rex to yet another hearing, yet another emergency meeting with a lawyer. He's the one who's in the kitchen, quietly cooking, when Tup signs his name on the first night, and who knows just when to break the silence with the announcement that dinner is ready; he's the one who knows when Rex is too raw to talk about it and just wants to throw things, and so he shoves him into a car after work so they can take half an hour to run in diminishing, tired circles around their local park.

Rex is also pretty sure that Cody is the one behind the cake that appears on his desk the day after it's all over, proclaiming 'IT'S A BOY!' - even though Jesse clearly baked it and Anakin, crowing and beaming and slapping Rex on the back every half hour, claims it was his idea. Rex knows Cody too well not to recognize that particular quietude he takes on that says he is proud, and even prouder to stand behind his brother.

It just about makes Rex fucking cry. Tup does cry, he knows, mostly with relief, and quietly, when they're finally at home and his new room is full of half-empty duffel bags (Cody had helped Rex clear it out, choose the new mattress, steam-clean the carpet) and Ahsoka, gangly and beautiful, with her eyes shining, has finally agreed to stop calling Rex 'sir' and gone home.

Rex isn't going to get everything right, he knows. Tup's experience of growing up (mostly) alone is foreign to him, and he knows that there's all sorts of shit they'll both have to sort out before he could ever think of himself as a father, or Tup to think of him as his dad beyond random slips of the tongue. But he knows he's trying, and trying harder than Tup has gotten for a long time, and he hopes that's something.

(Cody tells him it is, and he's the only person Rex will believe.)

It's not going to be perfect, either. Rex knows enough about that now, how being a cop and life in general can throw you curveballs you may have thought you were trained for, but knock you sideways so hard you wonder if you're dreaming. And it's not particular to him - he can't even imagine, for instance, what it could have been like, before he and Skywalker were working together, for Anakin to go through losing his arm. He sees it in Cody, once, when they're called out to attend a threat situation at the high school, and even though practically the first thing they see when they come screaming up in their squad car is Obi-Wan directing traffic on the sidewalk as floods of students evacuate the building it takes Cody a long moment to stop crushing Rex's kneecap with a white-knuckled hand before they're able to get out and do their jobs. (Rex leaves them alone that weekend - no calls, no hanging out - because he knows they need it.)

That first flush of it, though - of having Tup around, of seeing him _happy_ in his own way, of knowing he's doing well in school and sleeping and eating as he should and knowing that Rex has played a part in it - that's fucking amazing, and feels like it'll last. And it does, up until the point when it doesn't.

Tup's a teenager. He's allowed to be moody, Rex tells himself. He's allowed to come home after school one day and be flushed and tired, and snap irritated things about how he has too much work to do to talk or sit down to have dinner, and slam his door. That doesn't mean that Rex is going to be happy about it, but it doesn't yet feel like he has the right to call it out.

What Tup is absolutely not allowed to do is not show up to school the next morning, and to not pick up when Rex phones him from the station, having received a call from Obi-Wan asking about his absence. He's certainly not supposed to have his door locked, which Cody - who had offered to take Rex home from the station, because he was going off-duty and he clearly didn't like the way Rex knew he looked, just frantic enough not to be able to drive himself - helps him open with his shoulder, and he's not supposed to have a high enough fever that he feels burning to the touch and have his teeth gritted from the stiffness in his neck, and it's not supposed to be _difficult to wake him_ , which nearly stops Rex's heart.

The EMTs decide it’s meningitis while they're still in the ambulance.

Rex hates hospitals. He always has, mostly because they fucking terrify him with their contradictions. He hates that even when life is created there - like on the day when he'd first held Tup, astonished into silence, and his brothers were snickering at him for long minutes before he'd noticed a damn thing beyond the little bundle in his arms - he can't think of them as anywhere but a place where people go to die, or because they might. He remembers being here when colleagues went down on duty, and some of them inevitably didn't make it; and the one time that it had been Cody lying in one of those beds with his face fucking flayed open by some lowlife perp, and the nurse saying that they were glad his emergency contact had finally shown up and that they weren't sure about his sight in his left eye.

They'd come through that, then, and Rex had even been able to laugh at what the painkillers had done to his buttoned-up brother, how they'd made him weirdly loud and confused and affectionate. This, though - this, Tup lying there like a broken rag doll while Rex and Cody are instructed to put on masks and are poked and prodded and threatened with isolation in case they have it, too, and with the hospital's chief medical officer already calling the high school to tell them to check everyone who may have had contact with Tup before cancelling classes entirely - this he can't stand.

"You should get some rest," Cody says, an interminable time later, and Rex feels like he's blinking for the first time when he rubs at his eyes and looks at his watch to discover that it's the middle of the night.

 _Jesse is here_ , says the hand on his shoulder, or maybe he's just hallucinating. _He'll take over and we'll be back in a few hours. Obi-Wan's up next._

_We're all here._

_Olaror bat, vod._

It takes a week. Rex can't watch the lumbar punctures, which make him queasy in a way that no injury sustained by his fellow cops in the line of duty ever has. He hates the way the IV goes into Tup's arm, how it causes bruises and chapped skin - but they both do their work of making sure he doesn’t wake up a vegetable, and when the kid finally opens his eyes again and looks at Rex, _really_ looks, after a full six days it takes Rex a while to remember how to speak Basic.

"Hey, vod," he croaks, settling for a melange he can handle as he scrapes more fucking hair back off Tup's forehead. "How're you feeling?"

"Like shit," Tup rasps, and then looks appalled at himself for swearing, which is so familiar that Cody and Echo, huddled at the foot of the bed, instantly burst out snickering. "What day is it?"

"Friday."

"No," Tup squeaks, and coughs. "I had an essay due - "

"Extended," Cody soothes, grabbing hold of Tup's ankle through his blanket (Rex can't thank them enough for how selfish they've allowed him to be, how they've let him be more than a brother and forget all about their own feelings for the first time in his life). "I knew just how to persuade your Powers-That-Be."

"Ew," Tup says, and Rex is pretty sure laughing isn't supposed to hurt this much.

It's surprising, Rex thinks to himself, nearly two years later, to recognize just how much of his time has been taken up by making sure his home holds a family, and not just two co-habiting brothers. It's a constant cycle of crises and celebrations, of getting into the rhythm of school weeks and homework and social events with friends only for summer to arrive and throw everything up in the air; it's as much hard work as anything Rex has ever done in his life. He loses track of things outside of it, sometimes - like how many dogs Cody and Obi-Wan have accidentally adopted in this or that month, or how Jesse's profits are holding up, or even how old Skywalker's twins are, now. It's a busy time, a happy time, a period when, remarkably, he can't complain about a single damn thing in his life.

He needs that busy-ness as an excuse, in the end, when he realizes there's something about Cody he's missed, and he can only thank the gods that Cody is too happy to give a fuck about whether Rex has noticed or not.

"Wait a minute."

"Hm?"

"What the fuck." Rex points, blinking, and it's ten in the fucking morning on a Thursday in winter at the station and his twin brother is wearing a _ring_. "What is that?"

"You're going to have to be more specific," Cody says, the fucking bastard. The ring is solid silver, and fits perfectly, and Cody is just sitting there _grinning_ at him.

"When did - " Rex is babbling, he knows, as he grabs Cody's hand and lifts it up to squint at it and Anakin, attracted to trouble as easily as he is, scoots into the room behind him. "When did - "

"Last week."

Rex stares. "You what."

"Last Saturday." Fuck, he's never _ever_ seen Cody this happy, like he just can't stop himself from smiling and all the more for the fact that Rex has figured it out. "We kinda - you know, both did it at the same time. By accident."

"You asshole!" Anakin yelps, and that feels like the permission Rex needs to punch Cody right in the side of the head, which he promptly does, because if he tries to talk he'll just bawl instead. "You didn't tell us!?"

There's a lot of shouting after that, mostly about _You're all fucking detectives I didn't think it would take you this long_ , and several long, ranty voicemails Anakin leaves on Obi-Wan's phone, while various other officers start to cluster in and surround Cody with as much personal attention as he's probably gotten in years put together, and Rex loves it - how genuinely happy they are for him even on the back of so little knowledge, because they know _him_ , and they know it matters. They get Cody to drive them to his house after work, because neither Rex nor Anakin is calm enough to avoid a car accident, and Obi-Wan is waiting for them with a matching ring and prepared glasses of wine for them to gulp down before they can start in on him, too, which involves a lot of rib-creaking hugs where Anakin lifts _his_ brother off the ground and refuses to put him down, and Tup, who mysteriously shows up at some point, complaining about how stupid they all are for not noticing when the news has been going around school all week.

It's been a long time since the _entire_ Fett clan has gotten together for anything. Since they were all kids together, after all, several of them have gotten married, and with so little time to spare around holidays and birthdays it's been years since they were all in the same room; Kix and Jesse each have traded time with their wives' families, cousins have moved away, and they've all gotten used to cooking for six more often than twenty in one big blow-out moment.

Cody's bachelor party, thankfully, reverses the trend, and it's amazing, actually, to see them all in the same place again - all of the brothers taking turns throwing Tup Up (to his immense chagrin, now that he's seventeen and finally starting to grow sideways as well as upwards), Case and Dogma and all of the cousins competing for attention - it never gets old. As does the game everyone but the groom quickly gets organized, which is to override Cody's protests that 'that was my glass of _water_ ' at every opportunity and make sure he gets royally and totally slaughtered.

Given that it's Cody, all that means is that he goes very quiet and liquid-eyed and doesn't want to let go of any of them, physically, if anyone wanders close enough. Rex falls asleep in a tangle with him on the sofa, back to back and dangling off the edge, and it's like they're fifteen years old again and convinced that nothing could ever touch them.

Somehow, it never quite hits home to Rex how important this all is - because it's felt natural, the whole time, from beginning to end, from Obi-Wan himself to the house to the dogs to this moment - until they're sitting together the next day in the annex of Coruscant City's closest mayoral office, and even through his own hangover Rex realizes pretty quickly that even if he was feeling sick set to hurl, Cody shouldn't be this completely silent.

"Hey," he says, and nudges his brother's shoulder with his own. "You okay? You look good, if that's what you're worried about." (He does, because Obi-Wan was absolutely right about the waistcoat and Cody's figure. Rex might give it a try himself at some point.)

"Yeah," Cody says, and clears his throat. "Yeah."

"You don't sound it."

"Ah, you know how it is," Cody says, smiling sideways, and when Rex just looks back at him he looks embarrassed, ducking his head. "Well, you do. Needing to - get it right."

It's amazing, Rex thinks, how you can know someone so completely, and they still manage to surprise you.

"Well, if it's any consolation - I'm pretty sure you had it figured out years ago, vod."

"I know. But it's still good to hear you say it."

The door creaks, and Tup peers out at them around it, rocking slightly on the balls of his toes. Ahsoka seems to have had a crack at his hair, because it's braided in places and stuck through with pieces of spring flowers. "Uh - guys? They're ready."

Rex looks at Cody. "You ready?"

"Hell yeah."

They lift each other up by their linked hands, like their bodies have briefly become one. They always have.

*


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a big mood swing! This modern AU/post-Order 66 AU was pretty much directly inspired by [this badass-sexy-scary piece of fanart](http://v-0-3.tumblr.com/post/134347493442/mysteriouslysexyphilosopher-youre-welcome-d). The Obi-Wan/Mace pairing can be read into it if you like, or it can be platonic. 
> 
> **WARNINGS: gun violence, medical gore, possible-implied character death(s).**

*

It takes Mace Windu a long time to wake up, the first time.

He remembers the pain of it - of losing his arm, of having it shot through so many times that it seemed to simply give up, dropping away from his body like so much dross. Everything goes red after that - his clothes, his vision, his blood dripping and pattering along the floor as he is dragged. The mist descends, and he doesn't fight it, because he knows he can't. He is patient. He can wait.

And so he does, keeping himself quiet, keeping himself away from the pain. He's always been known for that, after all - for being the Jedi who could take the most, who could defeat the most and not bat an eyelid. He uses that skill now, knowing that somewhere, his body is being taken care of by someone. Badly, he can tell (with what is left of the Jedi on the run, he doubts he can be walked into the nearest hospital), but taken care of nonetheless.

When he does finally open his eyes, that first time, to see Kenobi's face flicker into being above him strikes him as something he had never considered valid before: a blessing. His former colleague is hollow-cheeked and pale, drowning in a leather jacket that's too big for him, sunglasses pushed into his hair; he looks tired, crushed by the weight of what Skywalker has done to them all.

He looks _strong_ , Mace thinks, inexplicably, and clears his throat. "Kenobi."

"Mace," Kenobi says, and leans further over him with a hard, biting grin. "Stay still."

"I don't feel like moving, I can assure you."

"You've been fighting off an infection," Kenobi says, and turns away, briefly, and when he looks back again he's peering at a syringe in his latex-gloved hands. "I'm sorry. It's the best I can do."

Mace doesn't need to look down at himself to see the evidence - he can feel it, the rawness of dying flesh, of fever in what is left of the ragged joint of his elbow. "Where are we?"

"Airborne," Kenobi says; it's all the explanation Mace needs for the flickering light, of distant clicks and beeps that tell him they are on autopilot, no doubt, and alone, utterly alone. Where Kenobi is flying to, he cannot guess, but he trusts that he knows what he's doing.

"Do what you must."

"I will," Kenobi says, quietly, as the needle sinks in. "Don't you fucking dare give up."

He doesn't - but he does rest. He dozes, half-awake and shivering with agony, through long days and nights of hopping from one airport to another, his only glimpses of the outside world being when Kenobi makes his way down the gangway to arrange for refueling or gods know what else - he comes back with weapons sometimes, Mace knows, stowing crates of ammunition under various seats in the main cabin. Sometimes Mace smells tobacco and the stain of nicotine on Kenobi's hands when he is administering his next dose of painkillers, and does not wonder why he has taken to this self-destruction (the answer is hardly a mystery, after all).

Once, and once only, he swims awake to find Kenobi lying across his legs, dead asleep, when there is only darkness outside the windows and, Mace thinks, they are somewhere in deepest Russia. Kenobi's hands fist unconsciously into the thin blankets he has piled over Mace to keep him warm, find the outlines of his kneecaps as though to reassure himself that his charge still exists.

They can't go on like this, Mace knows, from that point forward. He won't let them.

He has been fighting. He has fought from the start. But now, he has to mean it.

"Where is Skywalker?" he asks, the next time he is coherent (it hurts, but it is necessary), and Kenobi looks at him silently from the open door of the plane, his eyes hidden behind those ludicrous glasses, cigarillo glowing red at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't know." The shrug tells Mace more than he cared to hear. "Two steps behind, one step. He's never far away."

"Give me a gun."

A smirk twists Kenobi's face. It's not a pretty sight. "You couldn't even lift it."

"Nevertheless."

Kenobi stares at him for a long moment, and then, nodding, turns away - stubs out the cigarette, pulls up the stairs and secures the door, and, before he goes back into the cockpit, loads a lightweight pistol and tucks it into the bedclothes at Mace's side.

They had only worked together a few times, Mace recalls, idly, as he falls asleep. Jedi agents tended to mind their patches alone, the better to maintain discretion. But sometimes the job required more than one pair of hands, and he and Kenobi had worked well together (when Kenobi wasn't tied up in working with Skywalker, of course) - that job in Argentina, that extraction in Mali, that retrieval in Chicago.

What he had always remembered - and, in truth, at the time, he had disdained it as dangerous and unnecessary - was how Kenobi left reputations in his wake. Rather than keep everything about himself utterly secret, he had created and maintained impressions of himself wherever he went: as the silent friend, the undeterrable avenger. His name was _known_ the world over, something Mace had never allowed to happen, preferring instead to work behind innumerable aliases. He was the first Jedi Mace had ever known, and now the only one left, who had managed to embody the compassion their work implied.

Mace cannot see it, now. It is like what was Kenobi has deserted his soul and body, left him a shell. What little remains, he can only see from his sickbed - only see when Kenobi holds his one hand and swears at him in whispers, tells him to come back, to stay, to just _fucking not die_.

He tries. He does. And a week later, with the comforting weight of the handgun at his side, Mace realizes that he is aware of time passing, now. He is staying awake longer than he sleeps, and though his existence still narrows every few hours to a roaring miasma of pain as the medication wears off he is as lucid as he has felt since learning, what feels like an age ago, of the betrayal - of the fact that they were trapped, that Skywalker and his men were coming up the stairs, and that he was lost.

It happens suddenly; in Bolivia, halfway through a fuel stop (Mace doesn't ask how hard Kenobi is working his contacts to further their escape attempt, but it's been successful so far so he can hardly complain), gunfire spits out of the surrounding woods, and through the chaos of crackling explosions Mace watches Kenobi fire briskly out of the open door before, swearing at the top of his lungs, he hauls the cabin closed and rushes to the controls as bullets ping and ricochet into and off of the fuselage.

They are airborne for only half an hour before the warnings go off and the engines start to fail. Some lucky (or planned) shot seems also to have taken out the plane's landing tires, because even when Kenobi manages to wrestle the doomed aircraft into position over a ranch field big enough for them, it does not go well.

Mace wakes into blackness, and takes a deep breath. He can hear his name being called.

"Mace," says the voice again, and it is Kenobi - close by, and not himself. Mace cannot see him as he extricates himself from the wreckage of the tossed cabin; pain is radiating through him, sending his entire body throbbing and pulsing.

He is standing, now, for the first time in two months. His feet feel foreign to him, but he uses them - he staggers towards the broken door of the cockpit. Peers in. Sees Kenobi sitting crumpled in what is left of the pilot's seat, surrounded by desultorily flashing lights. He looks like a rag doll that has been thrown against a wall and left to fall, and there is blood soaked low into his shirt that is clearly from a bullet wound.

"There you are," Kenobi breathes, and smiles, and closes his eyes.

"You think I'm not going to return your favor, Kenobi?" Mace asks, hard, and, with his last hand shaking into a firm grip on Kenobi's collar, starts to pull, and Kenobi starts screaming.

They need rest before they can even contemplate how they're going to get out of this, he thinks, an interminable time later, when he's done what he can to patch Kenobi's side and set his probably-broken leg. Skywalker will be looking for them again even now, and it will take a monumental effort to get any of the plane's systems working for long enough to call for help, if there even is any. So it's this: this is what they have, now, the two of them lying in a field in the rainforest, on their own.

"Stay awake," Mace orders, and taps at Kenobi's face, and gets his hand swatted away.

"No," Kenobi rasps. He's pale from the blood loss and probably raving, but Mace finds himself ever so briefly spellbound nonetheless by the look in his eyes, like he's holding on to consciousness just so he can say this one thing. He's got a weak hand at Mace's throat, like he can't decide whether to throttle him or pull him in close.

"No," he says again. "Don't you understand, you stubborn bastard? All I ever fucking needed was for _you_ to stay alive."

Mace suspects, almost immediately, that that’s not quite what Kenobi means. That what he means is: as long as you're alive, I haven't failed. As long as you're alive, the Jedi are not gone. As long as you're alive, we have a chance, and I have a reason to keep on living.

As long as you're alive, I am not alone.

But as the darkness takes them both, and Kenobi's hand falls limply into Mace's and his eyes go calm and close, Mace thinks - he will take the compliment, if it gets him through this.

They're both going to need it.

*


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another chapter of CodyWan for [@swdomesticverse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/) \- a series of 'firsts.' Featuring various bits of porn, angst (whut), and PUPPIES.

*

**FIRST -**

_[ - meeting ]_

It takes a couple of years for Cody to get invited to one of Skywalker's little monthly get-togethers, and that’s fine by him. He knows it is well understood that he isn't necessarily the socializing type; and besides, he has no desire to provoke the kid into the sort of resentment of authority that would inevitably ensue if he felt pressured to invite his pseudo-boss to his home.

It's a pleasant surprise, therefore, to discover that when he is eventually welcomed into the neat townhouse by Skywalker's wife - who is downright gorgeous, and how the hell did he manage that? - the ensuing chaos is more fun than he ever would have expected. It almost reminds him of olden days with his brothers, what with myriad friends clogging up hallways and children scampering underfoot, most of the guys clustered around the football and the ladies in the kitchen making sure sociability is actually to be had.

"Boss!" Anakin says at one point, and he's a whirlwind, clearly feeding off of both the attention he's receiving and the fact that he has to give so much of it back to so many people. "You doing alright?"

"Not your boss," Cody says, like it's a reflex (which at this point it is), and grins over his half-empty cup. "I'm good. Thanks for inviting me."

"No worries - gotta have at least one Fett bro to represent, right? Oh!" Anakin adds, scraping his mop of hair off of his forehead with his prosthetic hand as a shriek of outraged delight from one of the little ones echoes out of the kitchen. "Gotta go. Obi-Wan, take over, would you?"

Which is how Cody ends up in the company of a slim, red-headed man who, thankfully, looks as bemused at Anakin's behavior as Cody feels. He's handsome, in a mischievous sort of way - if he were inclined to take notice (which apparently he is, and he'll put it down to the beer) – Cody can see the sarcasm of the guy in frank blue eyes behind his glasses, and an appealing order in the tailored jacket and natty brogues.

 _Well_ , Cody thinks. _Since I'm looking..._

The handshake is a good one, firm and assured. "Cody Fett."

"Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're Anakin's boss?"

"Strictly speaking, no. But I do outrank him."

"Then you have my unending pity."

"And you're here because - ?"

"Oh, I'm here for Padme," Obi-Wan says, and laughs, and hah, shit - it's really damn attractive. "She needs all the support she can get with him rocketing around."

He's a teacher, as it turns out, and Cody is again surprised, by the end of the evening, to discover that he's been totally okay with hearing all about how teenagers Tup's age (or, well, Tup is nearly their age, which is probably why his interest is held) learn and don't learn and delight you and fuck shit up. It's only by ten p.m. that Cody realizes that Obi-Wan seems to be equally fascinated by listening to Cody talk about _his_ work, too, which doesn't happen very often, and asks the sort of questions which require long-winded, complicated answers and mean that they end up sitting together in a corner of the living room, totally oblivious to the game except when they can't ignore the outbreaks of cheering and shouting whenever there's a score.

It's nice. Rex and his brothers aside, Cody doesn't have conversations like this with anyone very often - where he alone and what he has to say are so carefully considered and taken as whole and important. And once they've gone through most of a bottle of wine poured into their disposable plastic cups, he looks at Obi-Wan and his mind says, possibly for the first time since college, because he's spent a long time believing that he needed to _stop_ thinking like he's in college:

He's hot. And that's - damn. That's exciting.

The guests all straggle out at the same time, more or less. Cody shrugs into his coat while already outside, having lost track of Obi-Wan briefly in the crush of people shuffling around cleaning up after themselves and saying their goodbyes; it's a familiar moment of feeling totally bereft, not knowing whether he should just walk off or whether hanging around for that extra half-second would help. ( _Shit._ He's on the verge of feeling very pathetic indeed.)

He waits the extra ten seconds, nodding goodbye to Fives in among the group of happy colleagues making their way off down the garden path, and, thank the gods, it's worth it. Obi-Wan comes out absent-mindedly pushing hair back off his forehead, and smiles, and he's already got a little piece of folded paper in between two fingers.

 _Wonderful to meet you_ , he says. And then: "Call me," he adds, and they shake hands again, and that's that.

 

* 

_[ - date ]_

Cody doesn't even want to call what they do a first date. It's hurriedly arranged, as though on impulse, from Obi-Wan's side - a flurry of texts near the end of a late summer day, a slight distraction in his punctuation, and Cody only allows himself a few moments of hesitation before he makes himself pick up the phone and text back that yes, he's free, and a walk sounds nice.

A walk? Kriffing hells. He feels old.

But it's nice, to know that when he clocks out he won't be going straight home. It's certainly completely crazy to think that this is vaguely happening, now, and that if he's got his signals right you don't just text out of the blue to say that it's a lovely evening and that you're nearby and wonder whether someone you've met exactly once would like to take the air.

It's downright charming is what it is, and he's glad to have taken some extra care when changing into his civvies when he finds Obi-Wan standing perfectly upright and neat (and fucking hot, damn it, shut up) at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the precinct's main entrance, hands in his pockets and elegant in every part of him. And Cody's pretty sure he's not fooling himself - or at least, if he is, he's already lost, because it's a big fucking leap to make - when he sees Obi-Wan's face light up at the sight of him, quietly, like he's been looking forward to it all day.

Coruscant City's done its bit in terms of providing green spaces, Cody can give it that. They're only steps away from one of its biggest parks (and one which, due to the precinct's presence, is mostly clear of dealers and other unsavory characters), and it takes them most of an hour to do a lazy circle of one of its forested paths. Cody would call what they're doing wandering - walking too slowly, tilting into each other and then backing off. He likes the light here, he thinks once, at random - or, at least, he likes how it picks up the blond in Obi-Wan's hair.

Ah, fuck it. He knows what he wants, now. And damn, does he fucking _want_.

"We should do this again," Obi-Wan says, when they've ended up at the same entrance where they came in, and their conversation has petered out into a comfortable ( _comfortable,_ and isn't that just amazing) silence.

"We should," Cody says, and tells himself: _screw it. You're not in deep enough to have it hurt, yet_. "Maybe with dinner afterwards."

"Great minds think alike," Obi-Wan smiles, and leaves him with a brief grip on his elbow before turning and walking briskly away, as though he's snapped out of something precious.

 _Huh_ , Cody thinks, as he's fishing his car keys out of his pocket. _What'd'ya know..._

 

* 

_[ - kiss ]_

They've been meeting up sporadically for nearly two months before they actually get around to spending not just dinner, but an entire evening together. It's a movie night, something ridiculously gory and barely worthy of the popcorn just because it was the only thing playing within half an hour of when they showed up, and by the time they get out of the theater it's all Cody can do to laugh at the peevish, scrunched-nose distaste on Obi-Wan's face.

"Your choice next time. I promise."

"Well, I should hope so," Obi-Wan sniffs, and he slides into the passenger seat of Cody's car so easily, and with so little prompting, that it's like they've been doing it for years. "It left much to be desired."

"It wasn't cool when the guy's head went - ?"

"No, it was not cool when the guy's head went - " and Obi-Wan makes a strangled little noise which could be frustration or an imitation of the unfortunate death in question, before laughing and settling back in his seat as Cody pulls out into traffic. "Well, I suppose it was enjoyable, in its way."

Obi-Wan's told Cody before roughly what sector of the City he lives in, so they're quiet for most of the way back before he needs directions on the last few streets; they end up at a fairly nondescript apartment complex, but one which at least has a fair few trees planted in its grounds, and is made of brick instead of concrete, and Cody finds that he likes it. It fits.

He gets out of the car to say goodbye; rubs at the back of his head as Obi-Wan comes around from his side, thinks: I am a normal human being and this is what we do. We circle each other until something happens. I've done it often enough, and this is just another time. _C'mon, Fett. Get a grip_.

"I did enjoy this," Obi-Wan says; he has to look up a fair ways to keep eye contact when he steps into Cody's space. "I hope you know that."

"So did I. And I do."

Kissing someone with a beard is less scratchy than he remembers, Cody thinks, and then tells his head to shut the fuck up. He's a little busy winding a hand (finally) into Obi-Wan's hair as two confident hands slide around his waist and fingers bunch into his shirt at the small of his back, and discovering that Obi-Wan fits perfectly up against him as he drags them slowly together. He smells good. He tastes good, and when he has the time, later, Cody's going to spend a while figuring out exactly why.

Obi-Wan stops sagging, eventually, and straightens up with a small sigh, one of his hands rising to brush at the back of Cody's neck, his thumb on his earlobe. "Well," he says quietly, with his eyes both sleepy and sparkling. "I do hope you'll be coming back for more of that."

"When and where?"

"Saturday," Obi-Wan says, and though Cody wants to deflate at the thought of waiting a whole week, he knows from sometime earlier in the evening that the school semester starts tomorrow, and he can't ask for earlier than that. "Here. I'll find something more pleasant to watch."

"Should I bring anything?"

"Just yourself," Obi-Wan murmurs, and casts an appreciative glance down Cody's arms and chest which makes him feel fucking fantastic.

There's one more kiss before they part - brief, anticipatory - and then Obi-Wan lifts one of Cody's hands, too, pressing firm lips to his knuckles before he finally breaks away, and already it's more dedicated, more promising, than anything Cody has ever had before.

 

*

_[ - fuck ]_

Cody does bring along a bottle of wine, in the end, because he’ll be damned if he gets this far and then proves himself, righteously or otherwise, to be a cheapskate. He arrives at eight, and Obi-Wan looks tired but pleased to see him, and already has a movie in the player of his frankly-minuscule TV – and, wonderfully, it’s easy to just sit there for two hours, with Obi-Wan gradually relaxing into him and ending up under his arm. He could get used to this, he thinks, as the credits start to roll, and has to stop himself from smiling.

“Better than the exploding heads?” Obi-Wan asks, as he sits up briefly to reach the remote; thankfully, he settles back just as quickly, his shoulder firmly in Cody’s side.

“Much better. Though I’m glad you didn’t entirely forget how enjoyable it can be to watch things blow up.”

“One must make sacrifices,” Obi-Wan says, in a tone of long-suffering, and Cody can’t help but laugh. And then, of course, Obi-Wan’s looking up at him with this gentle, ever-so-slightly predatory smile on his face, and that dies down real fast.

They’ve spent a lot of time talking, Cody realizes – more than he thinks he’s ever done with someone he’s liked before. And Obi-Wan keeps going in that vein, though what he’s saying makes less and less sense as they kiss, and Cody decides that it’s going to be a mission of his from here on in to be the cause of him shutting up as much as possible.

It’s not that hard, in the end, though Cody would not have imagined that this, in particular, could render Obi-Wan speechless. He’s a little busy to think clearly of what he’s saying – particularly once Obi-Wan has swung a leg over him and is perched on his knees – but when he gets his hands under Obi-Wan’s shirt and sweater and manages to lift them both off, leaving tousled hair and skewed glasses in their wake, it’s all he can do to stare.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, and leans forward, puts teeth gently in the side of Obi-Wan’s neck and relishes how he shivers. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

It takes Obi-Wan a while to respond, which Cody can’t help but be happy with, particularly since it’s accompanied by quick hands undoing the buttons of his own shirt and shoving it off his shoulders, and Obi-Wan’s got that slow, needy exploration to him, now, his palms just needing to touch everything, sliding over Cody’s arms and chest.

 _And I hope you’ve been told how gorgeous you are_ , he whispers, and leans down, and it’s all Cody can do to lean back and keep a firm grip on Obi-Wan’s ass, down the back of his jeans, as teeth and tongue close around one of his nipples and the other gets all the spare attention Obi-Wan’s hand can muster.

It’s funny, after that, and satisfying as all hell. With Obi-Wan’s hand firmly in his, Cody manages to lead the way to the wrong door before Obi-Wan, laughing, pulls him in the right direction; falling into bed with him Cody is at first surprised, and then made eager, by how quickly Obi-Wan pulls him on top, grinding up into his hips. He’s debated all week whether he wants to take this fast or slow, but in the end is happy to be led – and where it leads is to Obi-Wan, totally disheveled (and fuck but that’s hot), panting beneath him and clutching hard at Cody’s sides as Cody works his fingers slowly in, and then his cock, and _damn_ but he’s missed this.

He’s going to need to do this so many times, he thinks, absurdly determined, as he buries himself in it, in Obi-Wan, in everything – so many times, to make sure he’s noticed it all, learned everything there is to know about how many different ways Obi-Wan can say his name (like that, for a start, fuck), how his neck strains back and he forgets how to breathe when he comes; how he holds Cody so close and firmly until he’s fucked himself out and comes with his back trembling and his face buried in the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck.

Just the first time, he thinks again, drowsily, as Obi-Wan laughs quietly and doesn’t let go, and leaves lines of slow kisses along his neck.

What a start.

 

*

 _[ - pet(s) ]_  

“We’ll take both of them.”

Well, that’s new, and surprising enough that Cody looks up from the adoption papers (he’s pretty sure he’s made a spelling mistake somewhere, but fuck that) and stares mutely across the counter at Obi-Wan. “What?”

Obi-Wan has his arms full of two puppies, now. There was only meant to be one. The plan had been for one, and they’d found that one, and the sight of just that one clambering happily into Obi-Wan’s lap at the shelter had been quite enough to make Cody’s week already. They’d planned on a Bernese, too, soft and shaggy and just starting to grow enough that it’s gangly and uncoordinated, and given that Cody has been looking forward to this ever since he and Obi-Wan started rattling around in their new place he’s already happy as a clam.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Obi-Wan says casually, and there’s something about him that’s full of mischief, but Cody can’t quite put his finger on it. “This was your idea. You can hardly protest against more of it.”

“Uh,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan just makes a little clucking noise behind his teeth, sets down the two pups in the carrier they’d brought with them, and promptly pulls another copy of the adoption form towards him.

“Pen,” he demands, and Cody hands it over wordlessly, and sits down on the floor to take a look at them.

 _Oh_ , he realizes, and grins. _That’s why_.

A clearer set of brothers you couldn’t hope to see, he thinks. They’d been playing together constantly in their pen, and Cody knew he had noticed – he just hadn’t thought that Obi-Wan had noticed, too. They gnaw on each other’s ears and bat each other’s noses, and when they’re next to each other you can barely tell them apart.

“There,” Obi-Wan says, as the pen clicks closed. “The second one is ‘Waxer.’ Sound alright?”

“Definitely,” Cody says, and once the pups are safely stored in the trunk of their car he takes a moment before turning on the engine to lean over and press a firm kiss to Obi-Wan’s ear. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Obi-Wan smirks, as he returns the favor. “If Bantha was anything to go by, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

 _Times two_ , Cody thinks, and drives them all home.

 

*

_[ - scare ]_

Cody shares the news with Rex as soon as he can, and isn’t sure why. It’s been eating at him for a month, now, ever since Obi-Wan heard – and he knows it’s driving him quietly crazy. He doesn’t want to think it’s a selfish thing, this need, but in the end he suspects it is: he knows he can’t keep it to himself, for fear of what might happen. It’s crazy. It’s idiotic. But he needs to know that someone else knows.

He leaves the file on Rex’s desk when he gets to the station, early, and then sits in his office and waits. Once he hears his brother briskly make his way in, it only takes fifteen minutes (and a fair amount of distant, filthy swearing) for Rex to find him, his eyebrows firmly raised over the open folder.

“Is this for real?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” Rex looks down and reads some of it again, rubbing at his jaw. “Fucking _Maul?_ ”

“That’s right.”

“And he just got out. This week.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Cody hadn’t really believed it himself, when Obi-Wan had first told him the story (slowly, and with a decent amount of perplexed frowning, as though shocked yet again by what the Jinn household had been through). Obi-Wan, at fifteen, in a drugstore with his father; Jinn, that mountain of a man, barreled to the ground and stabbed multiple times while the son and the store owner cowered behind the counter, bystanders to a gang meetup gone wrong.

 _It was so strange_ , Cody remembers Obi-Wan saying. _The lineup. Having that much power. If I’d been so inclined, I could have sent the wrong man down._

But he didn’t, because he was distraught and skinny and righteous with his dad in the hospital (soon to recover, thank the gods) and a little brother at home who looked to him for answers, and he’d pointed out Maul. Why the gangster should have taken such offense, Cody could never figure out – there was CCTV evidence as well, after all – but Maul was clearly not the most rational of men or criminals, and had been taken out of the courtroom ranting that one day, he’d come and find that kid and give him hell.

He’s served twenty years – which to Cody’s mind is nowhere near long enough – and now he’s out in the City again, and Obi-Wan knows, and Cody wishes more than anything in the world that he could fix this. He wishes he could fix Obi-Wan and his father taking tea together in silence (mostly in sorrow than in fear), or the pinched tension in Obi-Wan’s shoulders that he sees relax only when Cody steps fully into the living room when he gets home and Obi-Wan can see that it’s him.

“Damn,” Rex says, and shakes his head. “You need me for anything in particular?”

“No. I’m probably just being paranoid, but – I wanted you to know.”

“Sure.” Rex gets it, knows that cops’ families might as well be honorary cops themselves for the care they all take of each other, and, also, that Cody is feeling that raw gap of knowledge that says that he’s scared to fucking death that his presence in Obi-Wan’s life won’t be enough to be sure that nothing will happen. “I’ll put your street on my patrol route.”

“I appreciate it,” Cody says, and takes a deep breath, and gets back to work.

In retrospect, he’s almost glad (well, no, not glad, but there’s a certain awful relief in it) that what happens happens so quickly, and is so rapidly excised from their lives. It’s only a week later when he and Rex are out on patrol together – a rare privilege, these days, and almost a bit of a break from what can sometimes be the drudgery of the office – and Rex snaps his fingers absentmindedly as they take the last few turns on their drive. “Your street, right?”

“Right,” Cody says, and yawns, and settles back in his seat thinking that hell, if it weren’t against protocol and he didn’t still have his sidearm with him he’d ask his twin to just drop him off right here.

The first thing he sees is the dogs. Waxer and Boil, to start, barking frantically and running up and down the length of the electric fence that usually keeps them penned into the yard. The big Berneses are scared, with their tails between their legs, and howling fit to wake the dead.

Then he sees Wooley, sitting on the pathway, vibrating, snarling, and there’s blood on the former K-9’s muzzle and teeth, and he hurls himself out of the car so fast he nearly falls over, because Rex, astonished, hasn’t managed to pull them to a fast enough halt. Obi-Wan is lying in the front hallway past the open door, he can see immediately (as he nearly falls again with the dogs pressing at his legs and wanting the touch of his hands), and behind him he hears Rex yelp and swear and shout something about _in pursuit_ , and he doesn’t care.

Obi-Wan is awake, at least, and tries groggily to lift himself up with Cody’s help. “Wooley,” he says thickly, and as the German shepherd curls around him Cody can see it all as though he had been there – the door opening, the crack of whatever Maul had used across Obi-Wan’s face (that’s where the blood’s coming from, and there’s more of it than Cody would ever like, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything out of place: just ugly spatters of it in and around Obi-Wan’s mouth, a bruise rising fast across his cheekbone), and then, just as the bastard thought he’d won, a blur of highly-trained and outraged K-9 rushing into him with razor-sharp teeth at the ready.

 _I hope you tore off his balls_ , Cody thinks viciously, and then, nearly wordlessly, just asking, again and again, _tell me_ if you’re okay, quickly checks that there’s no teeth missing, no broken nose, no rising lump on the back of the head that could mean concussion.

With that done, it’s all he can do to just grab Obi-Wan in close and stay there.

“Fuck,” he eventually hears, and it’s Rex panting behind him as Obi-Wan manages to get a hand to Cody’s collar and grip back hard enough that he starts to feel better. “Couldn’t catch him. I’ve put out a BOLO for his car.” A hand on his shoulder, then, and two sets of blue eyes which look more concerned about Cody than anything else. “You alright?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan croaks, speaking for both of them, and that’s enough for now.

 

* 

_[ - day of matrimony ]_

Weddings, as it turns out, are fucking exhausting - particularly when they're your own.

Or at least, that's definitely how Cody is feeling. The first thing he sees when he cracks a lid is that the clock on their bedside table is reading 10:34, and yet he still feels like if he tries to move a muscle there will be incredible amounts of pain in his future. Physical, mental, post-traumatic. Any and all of the above. So, nah - more sleep. That's definitely the solution.

 _Oh, and this_ , he thinks vaguely, and musters up the energy, groaning all the way, to turn over and sling an arm and a leg over Obi-Wan. Judging by the noise that produces, his husband does not entirely appreciate the effort - or at least, if he does, it's in a language yet undeciphered.

"Hmm," Cody says, and smiles, and presses in closer. "Husband."

"Yes," Obi-Wan sniggers, clearly far more awake (it is not quite a question, and Cody is very much okay with that sort of teasing). "Are you going to let your husband get up and bring you coffee?"

Cody squints suspiciously. "Why?"

"Goodness me, my mother really broke you," Obi-Wan laughs, and manages to sit up just enough that Cody gives up and turns face-first into the empty pillow he's left instead. "I did try to warn you."

"I love your mother," Cody says politely, to the bedlinens, as the mattress creaks and Obi-Wan putters off into the cabin's kitchen (how he's going to find the coffee in amongst the pile of frankly-unnecessary and very-bulky gifts that have overtaken their retreat, Cody cannot fathom). "I'm just not sure I will ever again be able to handle twelve straight hours of your mother, and your father, and all the strange - step-parents? - and Anakin, all at once."

"You're telling me," Obi-Wan calls over the hiss of the coffee machine. "You are aware that the family resemblance thing going on with you Fetts is _genuinely_ disturbing, right?"

Cody zones out for a bit, because there’s really nothing he can say to that, and when he opens his eyes again it’s to the sight of a steaming and fantastic-smelling mug under his nose, and it’s pretty fucking nice, actually, to be halfway under a down quilt in a cabin with nothing but java and his significant other in his hands.

“Awake now?”

“Vaguely,” Cody grins, and when Obi-Wan kisses him he tastes of mocha. “Why?”

“Because I intend to do things to you that I’d appreciate being seen, Mr. Fett,” Obi-Wan breathes, and gods, but he’s evil and – Cody doesn’t mind a damn.

“There’s a thing, though,” he says – absently, because it’s taking a lot of effort just to put his cup down safely when Obi-Wan is doing that thing to the inside of his thigh – “how’re we gonna figure out the names?”

“Don’t even start,” Obi-Wan sniggers, and presses back briefly against the quick grip Cody has in his hair. “Our families would be in arbitration for _years_.”

“Point,” Cody groans. “Carry on, then, Mr. Kenobi.”

“Oh, I intend to…”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to read everything I've done for this AU in chronological 'verse-order, head over to [this document](http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/ro.HOHIBoZv1kk/rev.7)! You can download it as a PDF for easier reading.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might require a little explanation - it's for dakt37's [domestic!verse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/), where a discussion was recently had about hilarious shenanigans cops occasionally get into, including... shooting oneself by accident. I tried to keep it funny, I really did. And I promise it has a happy ending. *G*

*

Rex would probably be in deep shit with pretty much everyone in his life if he were to tell them just how much he enjoyed being undercover – and they'd probably be right. He wouldn't be able to deny that it was, all in all, a fucking stupid idea to be in the company of hardened criminals day by day, or sneaking around in their business, with a brother at home to look after and very little backup, if any, able to be provided when his badge stayed resolutely locked in a drawer at the station.

But damn, he did love it. Though he could never deny that he was a cop at heart and always would be, there was something about that thrill of leaving the badge behind – something about the comfort of being able to wear his own clothes, take particular pieces of himself down into the underworld and leave other parts (either the safe ones or the unsavory ones, depending on the assignment) behind him and remake himself. He liked, pettily, the swooping sense of satisfaction when his target – who was invariably a very unpleasant individual – turned to him, in his handcuffs, and his eyes went wide with naivety, and Rex got to grin and apologize and not mean it at all.

Also, he's good at it, and it pays pretty fucking well. Which is why he's at it again, and driving in the quiet-ish middle of a day out of Coruscant City entirely and into its distant hinterlands to check out his latest best friend's alleged stash of military-grade weapons and catalogue all the charges that can be brought against him. You know, normal shit.

This particular perp is not just an idiot, as it turns out, but a rich idiot, as evidenced by the long driveway Rex has to drive through in the heart of a patch of middle-of-fucking-nowhere-woodland in order to get to his pretty, rambling lakehouse and outbuildings.

Cody would kill him, he thinks, idly, as he shuts down his car engine and putters briefly around the estate, blinking in the bright, warm summer sun. _At least wear a damn mask_ , his twin would say. _This guy's been running the illegal gun trade in the Lower Ward for over a decade, you think he doesn't have cameras?_ Fives, on the other hand, would most likely be quoting Clint Eastwood lines at this point, drawling and swaggering for all he was worth.

It's good, Rex chuckles to himself as he peers in the window of a small, resolutely locked barn building, to have these contrasting angels on his shoulders. They keep him level, he thinks, still confident as he picks the lock on the main cabin – they keep him sharp.

The perp's tastes, as it turn out, run to the old-school nouveau riche. The place is full of hunting trophies – some acquired with his illegal arms, no doubt – and evidence of what he's been packing is all over the place. Display cases with antique handguns line the walls, most of which (Rex is pretty confident in assuming) don't have any registration information lurking nearby; others are littered across tables as though dropped there in the middle of a demonstration of their killing power. It's the closets, however, and the hidden doors, that Rex is most interested in – and in the end, since all the hard work of finding out the address of the place is long done, finding them doesn't take long.

"Bingo," he mutters to himself, as he pulls up the edge of a bearskin rug and finds the trapdoor. It only takes a few seconds of peering down into the dark with his flashlight to see the racks of sawn-off pistols and shotguns, standing side-by-side with the heavier artillery. Machine guns, rocket-launchers: the guy's been selling them all, and after having seen the consequences in body counts and blood over several years Rex can't keep himself from grimly grinning as he quietly puts the stash and carpet back into place and stands, wiping his dusty hands on his jeans.

"You should be more careful with your stuff, Ziro," he says, out loud, wandering his way back towards the door as he peers at some of the more intriguing examples of artisanal death on the walls. There's a very pretty piece, actually, on a sideboard, pearl-handled and gleaming, and it's half-tilted over the edge, which doesn't look safe at all. "Someone might get hu - "

He'd only meant to nudge it back into place, but instead it goes off, and gods _fuck_ that hurts.

Rex gasps, and then several things happen at once, in extremely quick succession: he realizes that a) he's been shot in the stomach and that is very Not Good; b) he has to open the window to let out the smell of gunpowder or someone will very definitely notice when they show up at the cabin, which could happen at any moment; c) doing that and picking up the fucking gun and putting it back where it was will mean using at least one hand, which means he can't let blood get on that hand, which means he only has the one, other hand to put pressure on the ragged hole he can feel in his lower abdomen, which is rapidly filling up with fluid that's not supposed to be there.

Thinking all that, in a circular, shocky fashion, takes about a second and a half. The end result is that he comes to a shaky, tilting halt in the middle of the carpet, bent double and with one hand clamped white-knuckled to the entry wound, his feet as far apart as possible to keep himself stable and upright.

"Okay," he forces out, through gritted teeth; he starts blinking, trying to make sure his vision doesn't go cloudy. "Not great."

Moving sucks. Moving is what he has to do – and he does, staggering first over to the window and hauling clumsily up on the sill, and then back to the sideboard to pick up the gun – by the hot barrel at first, which is no fucking good, but the new pain in his palm is actually the good sort of distracting. There's a breeze to dispel the smell, thank fuck, which means that by the time he's feeling too much blood seep through his fingers he's able to push the window shut again and, finally, make his way to the door.

By the time he gets to his car – which he _can_ get blood on, no worries, so that's one problem solved – he's figured out that he's screwed. No badge means no radio, and no radio means no friendly contact. All he's got is the phone he was given when he joined Ziro's gang, which he's pretty certain is tapped and tracked, and calling anyone from the cabin itself is impossible. Getting an ambulance out to him, then, is very much Not An Option.

Cody really _is_ going to kill him, he thinks, as he tries to slide behind the wheel without screaming and fails, miserably. Y'know, if Ziro doesn't get to him first. Or the whole bleeding out thing.

He's not really conscious for most of the drive back to the City. At some point, he blinks and realizes that some part of him must still be working, because he's hauled a spare shirt out of the back seat and has used it to apply more pressure, though it's quickly soaked through. At another point, he apparently hallucinates Anakin, sitting in the passenger seat and very solemnly telling him to just get into a crash on purpose as soon as he gets into the city's outskirts, because at least that will cause a fuss and attract the attention of the police. It's the fact that Anakin sounds sane, for once, which tells Rex that he's really in trouble.

He scrapes up the side of some doctor's expensive-looking car pretty good when he pulls into the hospital's parking lot, which, when said doctor sees it from the driver's side and starts effing and blinding, is pretty freakin' funny. As is the drop in his face from pure fury to slack astonishment as he peers in at Rex through the windshield.

Rex takes his blood-crusted hand off of his side, shoves open the door, and grins.

"Hi," he says crookedly. "I've been shot."

When he wakes up, Echo is beside him and glaring for all he's worth.

"Hey," Rex croaks, and sleepily tries to pull off his oxygen mask. That doesn't go down so well, judging by the brisk tutting, the creaking of Echo's wheelchair, and the firm hand clamping it back onto his face.

"Shut up and breathe," Echo says. He sounds angry, Rex thinks, through the haze of what he gratefully thinks must be morphine. He's probably got good reason to be, too. "You've been out of it for hours."

"I figured," Rex mumbles. "What's the news?"

"I presume you're asking about Ziro, and the fact that Anakin rolled up his network the second he heard you were down," Echo says, casually. "And not, I suppose, about the fact that Kix found you _by accident_ when he was on his ER rounds. Or that Cody suspended you. Or that Tup is outside and Jesse and Fives are considering doping him to get him to stop wearing a hole in the floor."

Oh.

Rex just manages to roll his head sideways and confirm with a closer look that yeah, Echo is pissed as all hell. There's a firm set to his brother's mouth and eyes which, unusually, shows no trace of sarcasm, and the fingers he's got on Rex's cheek are perfectly still.

"Guess it makes sense that it's you telling me this, huh," Rex gets out.

"Gosh, yes," Echo says, and this time he does sound mocking, but no less furious. "I wonder why we all thought it was a good idea for the accidental triple amputee of the family to knock some fucking sense into your head about ending up in hospital with none of your brothers knowing a thing about it."

A pause, and Rex’s memory is foggily providing evidence that yeah, that had really sucked, and the college blowing up hadn’t even been anyone’s fault. Gods, he had nearly lost his mind when it happened. And it had taken weeks, not hours, for Echo to wake up.

"In case you're wondering, that means you're not doing this again."

"Got it."

"Ever."

"Loud and clear."

Echo huffs out a sigh, and finally lets go of the mask, propping his chin on his fist and starting to look more disgruntled than anything else. "You're an ass."

"Well aware," Rex moans, as he tries to shift onto his side and what must be his stitches start to make themselves felt. "Where's Tup?"

"Outside. Wait a sec, it's one visitor at a time," Echo says – and before he turns his wheelchair around, he puts his hand (the one made of durasteel and plastic) back on Rex's.

"Never again, vod," he murmurs, and goes.

He's a lucky bastard, Rex thinks a few seconds later, when he's half-smothered under a pile of relieved, quivering teenager and he can hear Jesse and Fives volubly arguing with Kix outside the door over just how many days they can medically confine him to his bed. He's always known that.

Maybe, though, he's finally learned just what that means – and this time he'll remember it.

*


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [@swdomesticverse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/)! [@swdomesticverse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/)! [@swdomesticverse](http://swdomesticverse.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Also, **WARNING for this chapter:** brief implied and explicit homophobia.

*

Cody plans it all out to the minute, the day he and Rex turn sixteen. He's researched the best parlour within miles of their house in Tipoca, made sure they're hygienic and fast and just that right blend of friendly and disinterested that means they'll compliment his choice without questioning its motivations. He even calls ahead for an appointment, makes sure it's crazy early in the morning so he can get there before class and, more importantly, ensure that he knows just when to get up, so he can sneak out of his shared room and straight onto the tram outside with the least amount of fuss and noise and not be seen waiting around for it, either. 

It also happens to be the last day of school before the summer, which, at least, means he isn't alone in showing up with a celebratory possible-mistake. Various seniors come in wincing and limping and rubbing at bits of themselves which they hadn't expected to suddenly sport a tattoo until illegal booze had decided for them; others got their new accoutrements sober, and are sore but grinning into their sneaked caf. 

Rex sees it immediately, when Cody comes into their homeroom, and his blinding bedhead shoots up from the surface of his desk, his eyes going wide. "Whoa." 

"Yeah," Cody says, and grins, and slides into his seat. "What do you think?" 

Rex reaches out, prods gingerly at the little hoop now sitting in the lobe of Cody's right ear. He's got the quietest, strangest look on his face, like he's very slowly puzzling something out, and it makes Cody's stomach flip as though he actually hadn't prepared for this - as though he hadn't spent months figuring out exactly how and where to say it, and to whom, first, this most important of brothers. 

Rex looks Cody dead in the eye, then, and says cautiously - "You okay?" 

"Yeah," Cody says, immediately, and now, despite the din of other classmates and the ringing bell around them he's aware that it's over, and he's happier than he's been in a long time. "Yeah, I am." 

"Fuck," Rex says happily, his grin bursting round to his ears, and gets up, falling around the edge of his desk to wrap Cody up in long, still-gangly arms. "I'm so fucking proud of you." 

"Love you too," Cody says, half-mockingly, and though he hears Rex laugh he also knows that they both mean it, and it's fucking amazing. "Hey – later, when – " 

"I'll come home with you," Rex says firmly, cutting him off. "You'll be fine." 

And that's the best part of all, that certainty, as they head in the gaggle out of homeroom and towards separate classes, their normal silent farewell of a slap on the back intact: that when Cody goes home and his parents, forgetful and inattentive as they may be, finally decide to ask (or their other brothers, rabidly curious and with all the natural insensitivity of children) and he decides to tell, he won't be alone. 

 

*  

They decide early on that they should live apart, once college starts. It feels like a natural enough break – if the end of high school wasn't enough, the move to Coruscant City certainly makes the case for change, bringing with it as it does the end of half-relationships and the wrench (though they'll never admit that it sucks as badly as it does) that comes when they have to say goodbye to Jesse, Kix, Echo and Fives, with the latter two not quite old enough to understand just how long four or six months at a time can feel, and Jesse and Kix pretending through their various obsessions (those army cargo pants Jesse has taken to wearing every day, and Kix's library books on various interestingly disgusting things about anatomy and pathology) that they don't care as much as they do that they're being left.  

There's a train ride, spent mostly standing up or taking turns to perch on Cody's suitcase (Rex had been an asshole and decided to chuck most of what he owned, bringing along not much more than a duffel bag and claiming he'd figure it out because that was more fun), and then another, and then there they are, staring at dorm buildings on opposite sides of a dingy courtyard and not quite knowing what to do about it. 

Well, Cody knows what needs to be done. That doesn't mean he likes it, or, on the other hand, like he wants to talk about it. 

But Rex has always been better about that than him, and braver, and so when he turns to Cody with a frown and his fingers in his messily hand-cropped hair, it's a huge relief. 

"So – this is weird, right?" Rex says. "I'm pretty sure it's weird." 

"Definitely." 

"You're just gonna - " 

"I think so." 

"And I'm gonna - " 

"Yeah." 

Rex heaves a sigh, tugs the strap of the stupid duffel bag higher up on his shoulder. "I don't think we've _ever_ slept in different rooms, vod." 

"Not true," Cody says, and almost manages to laugh. "Dad told me once that when we were born, we were apart for a couple of minutes. A nurse took you out of the room for tests and left me with them." 

Rex gives him a beady, sarcastic eye for that one, an eye which says _You dumb fuck_ and _Y_ _eah fine_ _I'll pretend you're okay._ "Sure. We're really good at this." 

 _Don't be a stranger_ , they both say, just to be extra shitty about it, and then they go their separate ways – and it kind of works out, for a while. Cody can't deny, for example, that he doesn't miss Rex's mess, or Rex's teasing, which sometimes became nagging, about making _him_ stop nagging over things being a mess. It's a blessing, after so many years in such a busy house, to have somewhere to retreat to, even if it's just one room, where he can be completely alone to work. It's also a relief to not have anyone around the first time he brings a guy back to have strangely perilous sex on his sagging mattress (and doesn't doubt that Rex feels the same about the co-eds Cody sees him with on Saturday nights, who coo and stare at their similarities and ever-so-slight differences in a way that is fun when it's reverential, and not so fun when it leads to the sort of rude questions their brothers had gotten over by the age of five), and even more of a relief to be able to work through things in silence when he decides, the next morning, that he should probably make sure that particular guy doesn't come back again.  

(He's _really_ glad Rex isn't around for the whole thing with Bill, too, because if Rex had known exactly how that went down, and how much Bill had, like the asshole he was, made himself at home in Cody's room and in his head – and most of the time that was fine, really, except when it wasn't – his twin wouldn't have stopped, like Cody had ordered him to, at just throwing his previous ex's prized football jerseys out of the window into the dorm's dumpster. Oh no. There would have been blood.) 

By the start of senior year, though, with their majors finally converging in the engineering department and the fact that they're seeing each other at least every day if not more, it's getting harder to deny that Cody feels stuck, like he's forgotten how to talk about things, and like the room he'd thought was his is becoming more and more of a blank space.  

It takes a night where Rex stays over and they get a little too drunk with the freedom allowed by their finally being twenty-one – one where Cody staggers out to the little common area of the suite he shares the next morning to find Rex, still half-asleep and with his leather jacket askew on his shoulders, very carefully and gleefully drawing in permanent marker on one of the other unfortunate party-goer's faces as he snores open-mouthed on the couch – for Cody to ask. 

"I think we should move back in together," he says, rubbing at his eyes. 

"Oh yeah," Rex says, not looking away from his delicate task as the frat boy snorts and mumbles in his sleep. "Also?" 

"What?" 

"I think we should sign up for the Academy." 

Cody takes some persuading. It's not like he hasn't been used to the idea of service for most of his life, and that tradition is one which is clearly already taking root in Jesse, already off to boot camp, which is where he thinks Rex must have gotten the idea. But it still seems like a stretch, to go from what they've been used to at home or even in school, where Cody had always felt like the only damn adult in any room, to years of training to be police officers. He's not sure he, in particular, would fit. 

But when Rex shows up at his door in running gear the very next morning with his shit-eating grin and his hair buzzed so close you can barely tell he's blond, it's hard not to get swept up in that. It's hard not to get swept up by Rex in general, and Cody also can't deny that it feels good – the days of informal training they put themselves through around finals and exams and the last essays they may ever write wake him up, let him feel pumped, let him feel like the world has started spinning again, and it's fucking great.  

He'll take it, he thinks, when they've graduated with their brothers hollering and whooping from the back row of the ceremony and they've shoved desultory boxes of cooking utensils and ratty clothes into the closets of the shoebox flat they've found just around the corner from the Academy (because fuck a commute when your call time each morning is 5 a.m.). He'll take this – Rex swearing his head off when he nearly blows up the kitchen on their first night, Rex blindly shoving at him at two in the morning, still asleep, on the suspiciously-stained double mattress they'd been left by the previous tenant; Rex so excited he could burst when they show up for orientation and to be yelled at by hardass instructors with veins popping in their necks, his eyes shining and grateful, Cody knows, so grateful – because he says it, when they're about to go in and he grabs Cody into a bear hug, his fingernails digging into Cody's shoulders. He says it outright, that he's so glad his brother is there with him, and that this is going to be fucking _awesome_.  

And it is, Cody discovers, because he's good at it. He's damn good at the manuals, at the tests he aces every morning while the rest of the class are cursing the very existence of multiple-choice answers; he's good at knowing, when they're introduced to various textbook physical situations, what to do in the right order, and how to proceed if one thing or another goes south, and that that knowledge has practical outcomes that he can _see_ feels like something he has always wanted. 

"Brother Cody knows all the Codes," Rex says one evening to someone else in the locker room, too-tired and snide – and then an evil little light starts up in his eyes and the corner of his mouth goes sly, and Cody knows with an exhausted certainty that he will never, ever outrun this. And he doesn't, because the nickname sticks, with fucking everyone, for the rest of the two years (two _years_ ) of the training, and he'll never admit to being occasionally, secretly proud of it.  

He's good at the weapons training. (Rex fucking excels at it, and is just reckless enough that he'll always be the best shot any of them will ever meet, and the instructors hate him for it.) He's good, once he's remembered how to bulk up and that he's got a lot of barrel-body strength on most other guys, at the physical conditioning, at the moves he needs to take down a suspect at close quarters.  

He's even good at not reacting, when he's got one of his classmates' wrists under his hands and his knee is in the guy's wriggling back, when the kid starts mouthing off at him. He's Cody's age, if not a little older, and he's frustrated and tired and scared like they all are on most days, and he says stupid, awful things about fairies and fags and _get your hands off me_ under his breath, and Cody just sits there, and keeps his knee on that tenth vertebrae, and doesn't say a word. 

He's proud of himself, for that. He's even prouder when he feels able to tell Rex, later that night while they're comparing bruises, and he's still proud of how Rex's face still goes purple and he takes Cody by the shoulders and looks murderous with the need to know who it was.  

"It's okay," he says, and Rex looks bewildered at the idea that his righteousness won't be allowed an outlet. "I'm okay." 

"You're sure?" Rex says tightly. He's almost smiling, though, and as ever it's only taken him a few seconds to get it, though Cody has barely said a word. 

"I really am." 

 _Thank you_ , he doesn't say, but he knows Rex hears it, and throws it right back in his face, laughing, and promising he will always get that angry, for him. 

 

* 

Cody loves, very quickly, how much Obi-Wan and Rex end up loving each other – and even more so for the fact that he wouldn't quite have predicted it. 

It does make a sort of sense, if he looks at it from a distance. Cody and Obi-Wan are alike, and Cody and Rex know each other so well that they can't help but fit; but Cody has always thought, with a little self-needling, that surely that had come down, at least in part, to the fact that they'd barely been away from each other since birth. He knew that Rex felt that, sometimes, too – that he needed to establish just enough independence to make clear that he was his own person and that it was a choice that they were so close, that they were so dependent each on the other. They didn't want, never wanted, it to come down just to happenstance.  

But there's the other side of it, too – of noticing that sometimes they just don't fit at all, and they don't talk about it, and that they can drive each other crazy (Cody's Codes, Rex's Recklessness), and that it was probably a good thing that they'd been together so often that they got tired and content with each other by default. And it's that, at first, which is what helps Cody think that he needs to introduce Obi-Wan and the brothers slowly: that makes him jealous of what he suddenly has, for a little while at least, and keep this startlingly wonderful thing to himself. 

It's amazing, then, in the end, to see how fucking happy Obi-Wan and Rex are just knowing that the other _exists_. 

"You're a lucky man," Obi-Wan says, apropos of nothing, at the beginning, when they're still unpacking in their new flat and the most he's ever seen of Cody's family was Rex standing shellshocked at Anakin's side at the party the previous night. "I can't imagine how it must be to have a twin." 

"Give it time – my brothers'll probably decide to have a lot of fun with you. And you haven't even met Rex properly yet." 

"Oh, I think I have," Obi-Wan says quietly, and he's smiling as Cody peers at him quizically over a stack of books.  

 _He has an interesting face,_  Obi-Wan tells him, later, when they're yawning their way into sleep and the detritus of their meal with Rex is left scattered across their makeshift kitchen. _You can read him like a book,_ he adds, and though Cody has always known this in some vague sense it's surprising to hear it said out loud, by a relative stranger, one who hasn't grown up with the constant background hum of Rex's deeply-held emotions.  

Rex knows it, too, which is probably why he looks a little shamefaced when he and Cody meet up a week later for a beer and a proper debrief, which Cody is all too ready to admit he owes his closest confidant. 

"I must've looked like an idiot," Rex confides, when they're halfway tipsy and they've progressed onto the not-such-an-elephant in the room which is what he thinks of Obi-Wan. "Gaping at you both like a fool." 

"I know - he's not my type," Cody grins. 

"You don't _have_ a type," Rex retorts. "I learned that lesson the hard way. So, so many times - " 

"Watch it."  

"Not sorry," Rex sniggers, and then he's doing it again, that warring sensation playing out across his features, like he wants to smile but keeps thinking of reasons why he shouldn't, not quite yet. "He's good for you," he says eventually, letting the smile slip up one side of his face. "I can tell. You're pretty fucking happy, vod." 

They spark each other off, the two of them, in ways Cody never would have predicted. If Cody is the only one able to make Obi-Wan laugh with filthy humor in private, Rex is the only one who makes him crack in public; when Obi-Wan goes into professor mode, Rex turns studious and more attentive than Cody can ever remember seeing him since college, and visibly keeps thinking about what has been said for far longer than he'll admit. For a while, Cody thinks that they're both doing it for him, which is the highest compliment, and the greatest gift, he could ever be given in his personal life.  

Roundabout the time he and Obi-Wan get married, he finally figures out that they were doing it for themselves, too – and that's somehow even better.  

 

* 

"Hey." 

"What? Godsdamnit, get out. It's five a.m." 

"Get up. We're going for a run." 

Rex's eyes are puffy when he snarls his way out from under his sheets; it's a Saturday, and it's the first morning after the first night that Tup has been back with their parents since Rex filed his initial custody suit, and he looks like a fucking mess. "Bite me." 

"Get up. You have three minutes." 

"I'll do it in two if you promise not to say a fucking word," Rex says malevolently.  

"Deal. Get up." 

He manages to get into his gear in one minute and fifty-seven seconds by Cody's watch, and by the time they jog out into the chill of an early winter morning Cody thinks that it couldn't really have turned out any better. Rex is furious enough at everything (including himself) that he sets a punishing pace, and, as he remembers just how satisfying it could be during their Academy days to just lose everything one was in the total shittiness of it all, Cody is perfectly happy to just pound along in his wake. 

It's nearly an hour later, and finally getting light, when Rex slows to a halt and puts his hands on his knees, sucking in air and blowing out steam. They've done three circuits of their local park and are on a deserted sidepath, and Cody nearly feels good – would do, actually, if it weren't for the fact that he can still see the tension in Rex's shoulders, how he's still twitching with the need to _do_  something. 

"Alright," he says, breathing hard himself. "Talk." 

"You said you wouldn't." 

"Someone has to." 

"What do you want me to say, huh?" Rex demands, spreading his arms out wide. "You know it all already." 

"Remind me." 

"Damn it," Rex says, with a painful grin, and then, perfectly reading the invitation Cody has been giving him all morning, he launches himself at Cody's midriff. It takes several seconds for them to come to a grappling, wriggling halt in a pile at the bottom of the drainage ditch next to the path, and they're some of the most satisfying Cody's felt in quite a while. 

"You're gonna be a great dad," he grits out; he's managed to get one of Rex's hands pinned, but the other is still wreaking havoc. He might need to resort to kicking out a kneecap. 

"Don't say that," Rex laughs, and twists, successfully wrapping himself around Cody in a hug-cum-headlock. "I'm fucking terrified." 

"No need," Cody wheezes, and, finally deciding a) that discretion is the better part of valor and b) that they have done quite enough exhausting activity for six in the morning, goes limp. Rex, thankfully, takes the hint, and for a while there's just them, as usual, lying back to back (in mud, not as usual) and just breathing, wondering what to do next.  

 _"_ I meant what I said," Cody says, months later, when it's the final day in civil court and Tup is waiting outside while Rex, in a suit that he always makes look good, is waiting for the judge's signature. He looks nauseous as all hell beneath the hope and slightly-panicked wonder, and Cody knows that he's the only one who is allowed to see this – probably the only one who ever will.  

He'll be there for that: for whatever Rex needs. He knows he'll always have that favor to repay. 

*


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Returning to the randomness of this collection - a little canon-era Obi-Wan/Mace Windu. **Note** that it depends to a certain extent on the EU idea that Windu can see [shatterpoints](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shatterpoint), Force phenomena which can reveal important crucial points to the galaxy or events.

*

It hadn’t started in the arena on Geonosis, though in retrospect, it makes sense to date it from then.

Whatever ‘it’ is. Obi-Wan still isn’t all that sure, even when he’s spending nearly every night when he’s back at the Temple in Mace’s quarters rather than his own – they are too empty now that Anakin is Knighted, now that his apprentice has flown the coop and is growing a very powerful pair of wings on his own.

They’d never had occasion to fight back-to-back before. Hell, Obi-Wan had barely even _seen_ Mace in combat before, beyond what occurred safely – albeit fiercely – in a sparring room, where sweat and technique and enthusiasm is meant to be admired. On Geonosis, he’d fought back to back with Master Windu and only realized later that it was one of the first times he’d ever had to _rely_ on someone who was not his master or his apprentice to keep him alive with a lightsaber, to trust so completely in the skill and determination and focused rage of another who treated him likewise.

On the retreat back to Coruscant, exhausted, Obi-Wan tries to offer his thanks. Windu looks at him as though he is still a child (and is to be treated as such), and makes no reply.

Obi-Wan has had to play at being an adult for so long that, when the self-awareness that he now _is_ one breaks through his consciousness, it is wartime, and it comes as quite a shock. Time and age have never held much comfort to him in this regard; measuring his own growth against Anakin’s is a winding, unreliable path which offers no certainty. Yoda’s approval is inscrutable as ever; his fellow Knights and early Masters, he senses, are very much in the same boat of gnawing, ineradicable doubt.

But this – this, Mace’s approval, Mace’s respect, Mace’s love – this is tangible, this is _real_. This is a yardstick against which he finds himself adequate; this flattery, hard-won and rarely given, this assurance, lends him strength.

It is only with experience that they fall into it. War pushes them together more and more often; when Obi-Wan takes his seat on the Council, it is with the welcome of the dry, hard press of Mace’s hands on his, a shared resignation. When they are convalescing from various wounds during forced breaks from the action, it is easy to commiserate over the adventures of former, wayward Padawans; Mace’s so-called ‘failures’ with Depa Billaba make Obi-Wan laugh, desperately, at the thought that Anakin would commit each and every one of these so-called sins in a single day. Mace’s expression tells him that the other Master does not know what to make of Obi-Wan’s mirth.

They spar together, to regain their strength. They dance around each other until they can barely see for the sweat in their eyes. Obi-Wan knows he will eventually lose – he is hardly proficient against the Vapaad, after all – but he knows how to defend himself, and Mace is patient. Obi-Wan dashes moisture out of his face and beard; he comes on guard again; they charge.

When they have battled each other to a standstill – Mace makes no move to win, though Obi-Wan knows he could, being at the end of his own endurance – they bow, and Mace turns off his lightsaber, and looks at Obi-Wan as though looking into a long tunnel which holds some great secret at its end.

“What is it?”

Mace shakes his head. “You are so full of shatterpoints, Kenobi,” he says slowly, “that I can hardly make out if _you_ are even _here_.”

Obi-Wan blinks; tired, he nearly staggers. He gives another short bow, turns on his heel, walks away, quietly reeling.

He has tried so hard, during these months and years of war, to keep himself focused on the here and now; to follow his Master’s teachings, to remain a creature of the Force’s bidding, to deny that the Master of the Chosen One is destined for a higher, unknown, dangerous cause. Faced with this truth, though, from the lips of the Master of the Order himself, what is he?

He takes these questions with him into the shower, then back to his quarters; it is less than half an hour before his door chimes and Mace enters without waiting for a reply.

“I apologize, Master Kenobi,” Windu says, his hands folded sternly before him. “It was inappropriate of me to share my opinions on your place in the Force without proper consultation.”

“I don’t blame you. I can’t.” He feels it settling over him again, that same certainty that comes with Mace’s presence, however perturbing his words. “I have been ignoring this prescience for too long.”

“For all that you may fear it, it is – ” Obi-Wan looks up to see Mace standing close over him, thoughtful, powerful. “You should know that it is beautiful. The choices you make will stun and conquer.”

Obi-Wan stares up, speechless.

“Meditate with me,” Mace says, and draws them both down until they are sitting cross-legged on the floor and the Force comes rushing in to meet them – Obi-Wan with a cautious, bright, swirling joy, Mace with deep, quick-flowing rivers of feeling and strength.

It is a dance of perfect equals. Whether or not Mace is showing his true self, Obi-Wan has never felt so understood.

Mace’s hand touches his face, wondering, appreciative. Their kiss is slow and exploratory, careful, content.

Fighting together is glorious; whereas with Anakin Obi-Wan loses track of where he ends and his former apprentice begins, with Mace they are clearly delineated strands, tightly woven together until the pattern they form overwhelms their enemies. In their quarters, shivering in Mace’s arms, Obi-Wan feels as though he is the recipient of some sort of perfect, unadulterated worship as a patient, talented mouth maps his body.

Mace tells him, once, that none of the shatterpoints he senses attached to Obi-Wan’s soul have been affected by his presence. They are not for him; he plays no essential part in the story that Obi-Wan’s life will become.

But he worships them nonetheless, and Obi-Wan, lying with him, thanks him for it every chance he gets.

*


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t even know any more. I just really want them to hang out, okay?!? So here – modern AU weirdness with hopefully a decent amount of snark.

*

Han’s on a winning streak. A really good one, too, because it’s been a hard-won fight, so far, and more fun than he’s had for fucking ages. The casino is bustling, the cards are coming up good, the booze is apparently on the house (or at least, no-one’s asked him for his credit card in a while – which is good, because it would be declined anyway), and, frankly, if he wins any more money he’s going to have to tell Chewie to hire a getaway car, because in Jabba’s tournaments no one is supposed to play for this long and walk away with this much.

It’s a real fucking shame, then, that he really – _likes_ his opponent. As in, _really_ likes him. The guy rubs Han in all the wrong ways, and is gloriously sarcastic with it, and – best of all – must have really deep pockets to keep Han ticking over for this long. If they play for much longer he might start wanting to marry the bastard.

“Full house,” said infuriatingly-smarmy opponent says, laying down aces high.

Han concedes the point with a little flourishing twirl of a hand, grinning nastily. “Another?”

“But of course,” the man says. He sits back for a moment, lights up the sort of cigarillo that normally makes Han want to punch people in the face, and then settles back again, tugging down the edges of his waistcoat. “Your shuffle,” he adds casually, smirking through his reddish beard.

“My pleasure, Mr. – ?”

“Kenobi,” he says, with a tone of long-suffering. “And you are?”

“Solo. Han Solo.”

“Charmed. And what do you do for a living, to get so good at cards?”

“Ah, you know,” Han leers. “This and that.”

“I can imagine,” Kenobi says, and blatantly rakes his eyes up and down what he see of Han above and below the table.

Well. This just got even more interesting. He might need to warn Chewie of a raincheck, instead.

Han deals the hand, snaps the cards, lays them down neatly on the green felt tabletop. “And how about you? What do you do?”

Kenobi blows out a puff of smoke, picks up what he’s been dealt, and sticks the cigarillo back in the corner of his mouth. “I work for the FBI.”

Uhh.

Oh.

Oh, _shit_.

“This is what’s going to happen, Mr. Solo,” Kenobi says calmly, as Han sits stock-still with his cards slowly crumpling in his gangly hands. He discards two, picks up two from the deck, and scrutinizes them carefully before slotting them into the midst of his other three. “In approximately forty-five seconds’ time, a flood of well-armed and highly-trained agents are going to burst in here with the express intention of arresting every punter in the place. This with a view to taking down the money that supports Jabba the Hutt’s more esoteric dealings – which, as I’m sure you know, involve human trafficking, organ-trading, and arms dealing.”  
  
“Yeah, so I’d heard,” Han says weakly.

“At any rate,” Kenobi yawns, putting down his cards – king-high straight – and stubbing out the cigarillo in the ashtray at Han’s elbow, which they’ve both been making liberal use of all night. “I suggest you hightail it. There’s a door behind the east bar, where I believe your hairy friend is waiting.”

Han stares. “You’re letting me go,” he says flatly. “That doesn’t smell right.”

“Quite correct,” Kenobi says, looking briefly at a watch on a chain that he’s pulled from his jacket pocket. “If it were up to me, I’d be taking you in with the others.”

“And so?”

“Vested interests,” Kenobi says, and smiles as he tucks the watch away again. “Leia’s father has his concerns about you, Han. It struck me that I might have the opportunity to – _materially_ demonstrate your folly.”

“Huh,” Han says, genuinely stunned. In fact, he’s fucking impressed. “I _knew_ there was no way you were that good at cards for no reason, old man.”

“What _is_ it about the youth of today being so determined to insult their elders?” Kenobi asks wonderingly, his expression wide-open and innocent. “Goodness. You and Leia deserve each other. Hellions both.”

Han grins, wide and fast. “Yeah, we do.”

“Ten seconds,” Kenobi says, leaning back with his hands in his pockets as though he hasn’t a care in the world. His eyes twinkle with unspoken mirth.

Han rockets up from his seat and skedaddles, chips spilling haphazardly from his jacket.

 _Damn_ , he thinks, as he careens around the bar and, in the distance, hears the first chorus of shouted commands from the SWAT teams that have burst in through the far-off front door. _Leia **really** fucking owes me some dirt on her folks…_

*


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little interlude set during AotC...

*

“Dreams pass in time,” he tells Anakin, and knows that Anakin understands him completely; it is, unfortunately, not a new lesson, but – as with so much of his teaching – a reminder. 

His Padawan has dreamed of slavery, of hot desert nights, of being lost in sandstorms, of searching for his mother in a great, overwhelming darkness, where even the stars do not shine. From the age of nine, he has been accustomed to waking in the gloom with – at his youngest – sobs and screams, and clutching gratefully at Obi-Wan’s sleeves when his disquieted Master seeks to soothe him; in adolescence, a great gasping of breath and a terrified outflowing in the Force which, once, brought Mace Windu to their door, asking on behalf of the entire Temple that Master Kenobi do something about his Padawan giving the Council unstoppable migraines; in his first years as a would-be man, a slow opening of the eyes, a pooling, dripping sense of dread which Obi-Wan, if he is still awake, experiences as an icy fist that clutches slowly, so slowly, at his heart. 

New dreams overtake old ones, revealing fresh insecurities and conquering those past. Anakin no longer dreams of being weak, for he is grown strong; he no longer fears being lost, for even when not on Coruscant, Obi-Wan’s apprentice has a formidable talent for finding his way, of finding friends, of being sure to surround himself with the right people. Those dreams he has of the desert comfort him with nostalgia, rather than disturb him; memories of what Obi-Wan suspects is a fear for a certain young lady he once admired so much fuel teenaged wonder and longing.  

It had been a genuine startlement to Obi-Wan when, at sixteen, Anakin woke from a nightmare (silently, which was odd in and of itself) and came into their shared living quarters trembling, sunken- and wide-eyed, and didn’t stop moving until he was standing in front of his Master, looking cautiously up from a datapad. 

“Anakin?” 

“Am I awake?” 

The question was alarming, but at least spoke to a certain self-awareness. “Yes, Padawan, you are awake – or at least, you seem to be so.” 

“Good,” Anakin mumbled, and swayed, and tears stood in the corners of his eyes. “Then you’re still here.” 

Obi-Wan wishes he had confessed right then. The moment passed so quickly; so quickly the chance was lost to reassure his charge that the fear of loss was one so natural, so all-pervasive, that it was the very driving force of their existence, of their life’s work. 

But no; instead he had simply reached out for Anakin’s hand, squeezed it, said quietly: “Yes, Padawan. I am.” 

Obi-Wan Kenobi dreams of many things. Sometimes, it is the blinding clarity of a Force-vision, so terrifying when he was a child and so delicate, so important, so multi-layered and difficult to analyze now. When he is a child, he dreams with an ever-increasing frequency of howling wastes that will greet him the moment he is shoved out, rejected, of the Temple door. When he is a teenager, he dreams of the great statues of Jedi heroes staring down at him, silhouetted brightly in the dark, speaking in harsh, booming tones of failure and regret and disappointment in his actions or wayward thoughts.  

He dreams of friends buried under slabs, in thick, dank earth, in tombs of woods and marble and steel. These are fleeting nightmares, once which are all-too-soon superseded by some fresh horror that he experiences on his and his Master’s missions. When he is eighteen, he takes up the practice of nightly meditation before he sleeps – he speaks their names under his breath, releasing their souls from his mind, asking from them the favor of a night of undisturbed rest.  

Qui-Gon’s murder tests this ritual as nothing else has done before. 

For months, it is as though he has iron-grey hair and a mouth parted in surprise and pain printed on the back of his eyelids. He doesn’t even have to be asleep for the dream to torment him; in those first few months, more often than not Anakin learns his lesson about nightmares not on his own account, but when he comes out, bleary and rubbing sleep from his eyes, from his room before dawn to find his newly ragged-haired Master sitting on their balcony, staring out at the artificial galaxy of Coruscant’s skyline.  

The worst thing about dreams is that they _aren’t_ just memories. They _change_. They warp and remake themselves by the night, spurred on by the slightest doubt, the slightest questioning of the truth, the smallest murmur of paths not taken. Obi-Wan wakes, wide-eyed and gasping, with the phantom pain of a lightsaber in his gut, meant for him and him alone; with the sensation of Qui-Gon’s hand grasping his as they die together, their bodies due to be incinerated by the victorious Sith.  

By far the most painful dream is also the most improbable, one which makes Obi-Wan simply look at his gaunt face in his ‘fresher mirror and shake his head at the strangeness that is his mind – the one where he and Qui-Gon are survivors both, and yet his Master’s hand slips from his nonetheless, and the gaping maw of the melting pit swallows him up as though this, indeed, _was_ the manner of his death.  

It is two years before Obi-Wan dreams of anything else. His thoughts in sleep are jumbled, as though previous parts of his experience are pressing in on his present. He dreams of desert caverns, of pits of severed limbs – some of which seem familiar, as though he has shaken those hands, seen those bare feet during a sparring session. He dreams of brightly-colored cloth, of hooded, faceless handmaidens walking in a silent, endless procession; he sees lightsaber hilts, hundreds of them, scattered broken and forgotten across a desolate plain.  

Most nights, though, he sleeps so soundly that it is almost a source of guilt; somehow, to reject the reminders his memories bring him, the clues the Force wishes to show him, feels like a sort of unthinking blasphemy. 

It is Anakin who reminds him, when he wakes at nineteen, screaming his mother’s name, that no – no prescience, no forewarning, is worth this. He bears his Padawan’s pain as a rebuke; in demanding Anakin’s duty before the investigation of his fears, he knows he is accepting a responsibility for future chaos, resentment, an anger that he most likely will not be able to deflect with the quiet, vague, possibly-untrue claim of _I survived this on my own_.  

“Dreams pass in time,” he tells Anakin, and hopes for his own sake that it’s true.

*


	25. Chapter 25

*

 

The retreat back to Coruscant from Geonosis is a barely-concealed chaos. It takes hours for the Jedi to appropriately collect their dead; it takes even more for the clone troops, well-drilled but still hampered by the enormity of their gathered force, to tally their injuries, clear the last of the droid factories, organize a garrison to remain behind, and finally reload the ships (they are called ‘Destroyers,’ an ugly word, one which Padme refuses to speak) with those who will return to Coruscant for review.   

Padme experiences these vacillating, gargantuan forces as though from a long way off, though she is right in the middle of it. One of the Republic’s new starships has been expressly fitted out as a medical facility; there she sits, there she waits, there the gashes on her back are treated, though she barely notices the careful touch of clone and Jedi fingers on her skin. 

She just keeps hold of Anakin’s remaining hand, and tries not to weep. 

She knows she is not alone in this. Every time she lifts her head and forces herself to look at the place where Anakin’s arm had been, provoked by some noise he has made in his medically-induced sleep while the prosthetics droids whir and hum around him, she catches glimpses of Master Kenobi. He is always there, always ready with a hand to soothe Anakin’s nightmares with some touch of Jedi calm; always there to reach across to her when her shoulders shake, to give her the blessed gift of support-in-silence.

It takes four hours for the droids to finish their work; the new limb is ironically golden, spindly-looking, and already Padme misses what she remembers of the touch of the hand it replaces.   

“He will be alright,” Master Kenobi murmurs. She can see him full-length, finally, as she rouses from her waking stupor, and around them the ship seems newly alive with activity, as all of the clone-patients are finally in their berths and, outside, the great engines of the fleet begin to snarl and cough. Master Kenobi’s face is pale; the Geonosian’s restraining binders, charred and mangled, are still around his wrists, and his tunics are blackened with what she knows cannot be soot. 

“As will you, I trust,” Padme says, finding herself hoarse. “You have not been tended to.” 

“I am not a priority.”  

“Don’t,” she says, her fingers spasming around Anakin’s; he shifts, he groans under his breath. He is wakening. “Don’t say that.” 

Kenobi’s gaze concedes acceptance, but not contrition, as Anakin opens his eyes.  

“Padme?” he groans, and she is quick to reassure him; with Kenobi watching them both she cannot comfort him as she would, but she _can_ lean closer, can brush sand off of his shoulder and his cheek, can smile as he turns his unfocused stare in her direction.  

“I am safe,” she says, knowing it’s what he needs to hear. “We’ll be departing for Coruscant shortly.”  

“Sleep, Padawan mine,” Kenobi says gently. “You need it.” 

“I’m sorry, Master – ” 

“Hush.” Some grave shame, or regret, passes over Kenobi’s face before he brings himself again to smiling, and pats Anakin on his other shoulder. “This is not the time for regret. Sleep, while I go report your progress to Master Yoda.” 

Padme can feel a headache building at her temples as Anakin settles back with a weak sigh; his eyes are not yet fully closed, and she can sense him fighting against losing sight of the world again.  

 _Senator_ , the headache whispers, and she sits bolt upright, staring wildly. 

 _My apologies_ , it says again, and when she turns wide eyes on Master Kenobi, he is looking at her with a tired pain that makes him seem very small. _If he were asleep, I would speak aloud, but he is not_. 

She shakes her head, uncomprehending. What on earth is going on? 

 _I fear I cannot stand unaided._ A long pause. _It would be better for Anakin’s peace of mind were he not to witness_ –  

 _Oh_ , she thinks, and remembers back, to when she and Anakin had been carted into the Geonosian arena, and the lines of exhausted agony which had been upon Master Kenobi’s face _then_ – gods only knew what Dooku had done, she had said it herself ( _they’ll never get there in time to save him_ ) – and only now realizes what the wounds to his arm and leg actually _mean_. 

She nods, minutely, and slides her fingers carefully away from Anakin’s. He is falling asleep, now, but only just, and when she steps around to the other side of the bed she tries to make sure that her hands under Master Kenobi’s elbow are hidden from his sight. The Jedi Master is heavier than she would have imagined given his size and build; his muscle gives him heft and warrior-strength, she realizes now, just like every other Jedi she has seen fight and die today, so unlike what she had always thought Jedi were meant to be. 

They are nearly at the door to the main sickbay, and she has, after a quick look back, pulled his good arm over her shoulders, by the time Kenobi speaks. “Thank you, Padme. I apologize for my intrusion.” 

“Not at all,” Padme murmurs, and, with a jerk of her head, she summons the attentions of a nearby clone medic, who, recognizing the tunics of a Jedi, seems more than happy to quietly oblige her. “You were right – about Anakin. He would worry.” 

“We are of a similar mind,” he sighs, and, under the guidance of two pairs of hands, finally allows himself to be sat down on a gurney. His wounds, when the medic pulls back the burned cloth, are gaping and ugly, designed to instantly cripple. 

“You Jedi,” Padme says, with a shake of her head; she herself picks up a vibroblade from the medic’s tray while he is busied with other tasks, and sets to carefully carving away the remnants of the manacles, aware that she must think of something to say in order to keep her mind intact when surrounded by so much pain. “I shall forever be chasing you into taking care of yourselves.” 

“I do hope not,” he says, and, unbelievably, he is smiling as though what she has said has truly touched him. “Though I acknowledge that the possibility of _that_ now seems remote.”  

The manacles fall away; Padme puts down the vibroblade, turns Kenobi’s dusty hands over within hers. He submits to her inspection in silence, and she feels no need to meet his gaze.  

“Do you know,” she says. “I do believe you’ll mend, Master Kenobi.”  

“Thank you, Senator,” he replies, with all the quiet solemnity and kindness she has come to expect from him. “Your concern, as ever, means a great deal.”  

Padme believes him; believes the warmth in his voice, which is not belied by his formality. She can only hope that she will continue to believe it, when the war comes. 

*


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a twist of true weirdness, this oneshot is an AU of _[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCN5JJY_wiA)._ I really can't describe it any further than that. *G*

*

They’ve been together a long time, Ani and Red. Red’s not his real name, but hey, if even Ani doesn’t know it, no other man west of the Mississippi is gonna know it neither. They’ve had their routine down pat for months – Ani rolls into town, causes a ruckus, gets himself strung up on the end of a rope. Red is the coolest shot in the territory, shoots him down off of that rope from hundreds of feet. No one ever sees him, and no one ever catches them once they’re out in the desert. 

Ani’s best at barnstorming. He’s best at tricking gun shop-men into giving him their best pieces (at the end of their own barrel, of course); at making a mess of an innkeeper’s meticulously, desperately-arranged rows of whiskey, at letting cattle by the hundreds out of the fences the ranchers have so slowly erected to keep them in. Red doesn’t say much about any of this – or indeed about anything at all – but if Ani were motivated to care, he’d think the other outlaw doesn’t approve.  

It’s a blistering hot day in July when Ani’s grinning at the end of his latest rope and the expected shot doesn’t come. By the time he’s wriggled his way out his predicament alive – just – and staggered his way to freedom in the middle of the night through a hole that was surprisingly difficult to punch in the back of the local gaol, Red is long gone. 

Ani swears retribution so fast it makes his head spin. 

It’s months before he finds him, in a town half-torn apart by soldiers. War makes the west ugly, the supposedly-Civil war even more so; it spoils the desert, leaves bodies dried and mummified instead of rotted. From the look on Red’s face when Ani finally corners him, you’d think that he’d been fighting it, too – it makes Ani reconsider the rumor he’d once laughed off, that Red lost his name when he left the cavalry. 

“Ani,” he nods, rubbing briefly at his beard. “I’m afraid I can’t say I’m pleased to see you.” 

“Outside,” Ani growls. 

He makes them march through the desert as the sun comes up. He’s got a horse and several flasks of water; Red’s got nothing, just the clothes on his back and his beloved pieces secure on the pommel of Ani’s saddle. After a couple of hours, he’s staggering; just after noon he falls for the first time, and starts to crawl, never looking back. 

It’s fucking gorgeous is what it is, Ani thinks, grinning as he takes a slug of whiskey from the back of his perspiring mare. “Tell me,” he calls once – “what was it exactly that convinced you y’had to leave me behind to die, Red? I loved you, man. We had some good times.” 

“Couldn’t be along for the ride when you burned out, Ani,” Red pants. He gets back up, takes a few halting, fumbling steps, and falls again. “Couldn’t do it.” 

“Aw, you’re gonna make me cry,” Ani sniffs. He dumps some of his water into the sand just for fun, just to see Red’s face crease with agony, before urging him on again. 

There’s a cart full of dead Union soldiers a mile further up the road – just sitting there, prime for the picking of pockets, and so Ani does, not particularly caring where Red is or how dead he’s also getting.  

One of them is alive, though, and chokes into his ear about knowing where there’s _gold_ buried, but he wants water – and by the time Ani scrambles back to him he’s slipped away, and Red is sitting next to him, smiling weakly out of his burned face. 

“Damn it all,” Ani shouts; he lifts Red by his shirt-front, tries to glare him down. “Did he tell you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Tell me and I’ll let you live.” 

“How very decent of you,” Red drawls; he’s clearly delirious, but not enough that he can’t fuck with Ani this one last time. “I take you to it, we split it half and half.” 

Ani agrees, because what else can he do? And besides – he’d miss the man, he realizes, once he’s got Red, barely breathing and his eyes rolled back, tossed across his saddle. He’d actually miss him, and doesn’t that just take the biscuit? 

He knows where to go to get help: he still knows the little outpost of a mission, staffed by a priest and a small group of tough-as-nails nuns who don’t refuse aid to anyone who needs it, and who have been taking in wounded soldiers from both sides for months.  

The only surprise about it is when _she_ opens the door – and then, the even greater shock, that she lets them in anyway instead of turning Ani out on his ear. 

“You look good, Snips,” he tries to say, when Red is sleeping peacefully and they’re finally sure he’s going to make it. “How’s – ” 

“Our mother is dead,” Ahsoka says, and her condemnation is brittle, frigid, like a cold wind over the desert in winter. “I only got back today from burying her.” 

She looks sideways at Ani, not letting up as he reels. “And didn’t I hear you had a wife?” 

The rest of their time there is a peculiar sort of hell. Red and Ahsoka might actually be becoming friends, which is terrifying. Ani spends a lot of time outside, hiding away from visiting officers which might recognize him, and trying to figure out ways to atone for his sins – in which he is entirely unsuccessful. 

 _One last hit_ , he promises himself. _I’ll get this gold and then I’ll go back to Santa Fe and never look back_. 

They meet Angel Eyes on their way to Texas, following the instructions Red had been given by the dying man. Or at least, Angel Eyes is what everyone calls him – he’s another one with no name to speak of, except he’s done it for longer than Red, because he’s the oldest gunslinger Ani’s ever seen, and one of the most frightening. He’s got slicked-back white hair and piercing blue eyes that sometimes look yellow around the edges, and a crooked smile that tells them just how screwed they are as he sets his tame Union soldiers on them, lets them beat the living shit out of Ani while Red watches. 

“You, I can deal with,” he says to Red, whose eyes have gone flat and cold. He pats Red on the shoulder, turns him away from Ani’s groans. “We have places to be.” 

“Touch me again and I’ll shoot first,” Red says, barely above a whisper. 

When Ani catches up with them again, two weeks later, Angel Eyes laughs, a wheezing, low-pitched sort of sound as he holds them both at gunpoint over the grave where the money is supposedly buried (but it seems it isn’t, because even though Red is covered in dirt there’s no moneybags, nothing but an empty hole and a discarded shovel). “I have to admire your pluck, boy,” he chuckles. “Maybe I should’ve used you instead – but you didn’t know anything. You never know anything, kid – do you?” 

“Not much,” Ani says sullenly. Red just looks at him, smirks, keeps his ever-steady hands down by his sides. 

“Talk to him,” Angel Eyes says, pointing between Ani and Red with his Colt. “He brought me to the wrong place. Get it out of him, and I’ll give you half, just like he promised.” 

Ani looks at Red; remembers campfires and cold nights and long, quiet hours in the saddle, remembers how he was taught to flip his gun just so, the murmured reminders that he should get out, that this is no life for a kid, that I’ll walk you right back there to her myself if you say the word. 

They draw together, faster than a thought – Angel Eyes goes down without a sound, staring and malevolent even in death, eyes fixed and staring. 

“Fuck,” Ani says, puffing out his breath. “So where’s this cash, then?” 

“Next grave over,” Red says, but then he’s got his gun trained on Ani, a twinkling smile pulling at his lips. “Hands above your head.” 

“Oh _no_ , come _on,_ man, gimme a _break –_ ” 

Red trusses him up, leaves him half-dangling and squirming hard to make sure he doesn’t fall off his tombstone and let the rope break his neck. There’s still half of the money left piled on the ground when Red saddles up his horse with his share, but it doesn’t seem like Ani’s going to get the chance to use any of it. 

“C’mon, Red,” he begs, as Red finishes loading his bags. “After all our time together?” 

“Especially because of all our time together,” Red laughs. He looks up at Ani, lets his smile drop away until he is solemn and tired. 

“Can’t watch you burn out, kid,” he says, quietly. “You’ll be the death of me one day.” 

He rides away; he’s nearly out of sight, shadowed and blurred by heatwaves, when his shot comes screaming out of the distance and severs the rope, leaving Ani in a swearing, giggling, sweaty heap next to his gleaming stash. By the time Ani struggles out of his bonds and onto his feet, he’s completely out of sight. 

“Santa Fe,” Ani says to himself, happily, and swears eternal, bloody revenge. 

*


End file.
